


walk where the wild things grow

by explosivesky



Category: RWBY
Genre: Background Arkos, F/F, Maiden AU, Soulmate AU, side seamonkeys, verrryyyyy background white rose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 04:53:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 45,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13943010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explosivesky/pseuds/explosivesky
Summary: She’s staring at Blake like she’s giving up, like she loves her, like she’s handing her that sky. Take this, she’s saying, this clap of thunder, this wildfire waiting to start. Take this like it’s my heart.Blake runs away, and only after realizes what she's been running to. I've seen enough destruction, Yang says. Sometimes it's nice just to watch the flowers bloom.





	1. Chapter 1

“ _I can’t believe you’re really gonna hike,_ ” Sun says for the thousandth time, voice echoing through the scroll pressed against her ear. She watches mountains and farmland fly by the window of the train, serene and peaceful, like she’s looking at a still painting rather than a real landscape. “ _Like, I know you’re outdoorsy and shit, but it’s not an easy journey._ ”

“ _I_ can’t believe you willingly chose to move somewhere so far outside of the city,” Blake says, her automatic response at this point. “I’ve told you - I’m not hiking the _whole_ way, just from the station before yours. It’s supposed to be a beautiful trail.”

“ _It goes through Forever Fall, so, yeah, it’s pretty, but it’s still dangerous,_ ” he says. “ _And I mean, it’s not that big a deal. I’ve lived in a bunch of different places, and Neptune was right - it’s, like, amazing here._ ” 

“How dangerous can it be?” Blake reasons. “Other people do it all the time, don’t they?” 

“ _Yeah, but they’re trained fighters and shit.”_

“No they’re not.”

_“Okay, no, but they can probably fight like, a little bit.”_

“I know _survival,_ ” Blake says. “Isn’t that enough? Besides, this region hasn’t had a bad Grimm outbreak in years.”

Someone else’s voice interrupts in the background, words too muffled for Blake to make out; Sun laughs and responds, sounding much further away. She waits patiently, used to these kinds of interruptions. Sun says, “ _Sorry, Neptune swears he just wrote something that’s literally genius, so I gotta go read it and kiss his ass or something.”_

“Not literally, I hope.” 

Sun sighs; she can picture him rolling his eyes. “ _Blake, I’m not gonna tell you about our sex life, so stop asking._ ” 

Her jaw drops comically. “I’m not asking!” she squeals, and another passenger throws a dirty look at her for the volume of it. She lowers her voice, mimes an apology. “You’re such a jackass.” 

“ _You started it_ ,” he says, laughing, and then his tone turns back to seriousness. “ _Look, just be careful, okay? We’ll meet you at the end of the trail at three. It shouldn’t take you more than like, two hours.”_

“Okay,” Blake says. “See you soon.” 

She hangs up, drops her head back against the seat. Bits of red start popping in and out of her view outside, the barest hint of the trees of Forever Fall glinting through. The train flashes its arrival warning across the screen, and she grabs her bag from the seat beside her, ties up her hair. Sun’s warning plays through her head again and she scoffs; it’s a two-hour hike, not like she’s camping in the wilderness. She’s looking for inspiration, maybe; something beautiful to set her on a path after Adam, after working years in a job she only realized she hated when she quit. Maybe she’s looking for herself, for the parts she’d given away before recognizing just how badly she needed them. Maybe she’s looking for a sign. 

She sighs. It sounds so stupid, immature, running away to the middle of fucking nowhere to visit friends who seem to be happy in their instability, their always-transient lifestyle, their constantly-changing career goals. Like nature’s going to talk to her, put her life into perspective, give her the freedom she needs to be who she wants without complaint, without question, without control. 

She’s pretty sure the only thing nature’s going to tell her is to grow up.

\--

She’s an hour in and it truly is one of the most tranquil, picturesque landscapes she’s ever seen. The red of Forever Fall has given way to a myriad of other colors, yellows and oranges and greens, and it’s how she knows she’s officially over the border into the next town, Sun and Neptune waiting somewhere at the end of it. She makes her way around a small bend of trees, following the worn path, and falters on a step.

There’s a woman crouching in the dirt just ahead of her, her hand pressed against a large, wide patch of soil that looks a murkier, darker brown than the land around it; she seems to be studying it carefully, eyes narrowed, long blonde hair spilling over her shoulders. Blake’s so startled by the appearance of another person - especially in such a strange position - that she stops walking entirely, caught off-guard by the sight in front of her. 

“Hm,” she hears the woman hum curiously to herself, and Blake doesn’t know what spell has her held to the ground, unable to move, to speak, to breathe; all she can do is stare at the way the woman digs her fingers into the dirt, takes them out, smoothes it over, and then--

The sunlight shifts, drips between the leaves, tangles itself in Blake’s hair, rests across her face; she blinks against the sudden glare, raising an arm automatically, and the woman’s on her feet in an instant, head whipping around like she’s expecting to find a threat, an ambush or attack. 

Instead, she finds Blake, still standing there dumbly like she’s taken root in the earth, and apparently she’s decisively deemed unthreatening because the woman straightens, gaze zeroing in on her.

She actually looks to be around Blake’s age, and she isn’t at all dressed for the weather, which is the first intriguing thing about her; she’s wearing an orange shirt with a heavy green jacket over her shoulders - it seems to be a raincoat, which baffles Blake all the more, as it’s a rather warm, dry day - and denim shorts, plain black sneakers on her feet. Compared to Blake’s shorts and a t-shirt she’d decided she didn’t mind getting dirty, this girl looks like she’s on a hike to a different land entirely.

The girl seems to be observing her closely, waiting for a move to be made; her eyes trail over Blake’s attire, her legs, her arms, her chest, her neck, her face-- 

Her expression falls open, suddenly raw and vulnerable. “Oh,” she breathes out, lavender irises peering into Blake’s own gold, and the sound of her voice pours over Blake’s skin like melting wax. “You’re a _much_ better surprise than the shit I usually run into in this forest.”

Blake, unable to process the bizarre situation, only blurts out, “Aren’t you hot?” and promptly flushes awkwardly upon hearing her own words.

“Always,” the girl respond instantly, winking.

“Your coat,” Blake contextualizes. 

The girl stares at her for a second, like she’s debating not only what to say but if to answer at all. She says casually, “Well, I was visiting Weiss, and I _really_ don’t like getting my hair wet. It’s best to let her throw her temper tantrums rather than fight back and waste the energy, so…” 

_Weiss_. It’s a name that sounds like it has a meaning, or it _should,_ but it doesn’t even hold water to Blake. She says, “Um,” not understanding a single word the girl’s just said. 

The girl doesn’t notice her lack of comprehension, brushes right by the brief pause. “What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?” she asks. “And all alone?” 

Blake raises a single eyebrow, more confused at the phrasing than anything else. “‘A place like this’?” she repeats, torn between flustered for being called pretty and annoyed for being assumed as unfit for wilderness. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“ _You_ know,” the woman says mysteriously, whimsically waving a hand. “There may be monsters lurking in the shadows…” 

“ _You’re_ the only thing lurking in the shadows,” Blake points out. 

“I was definitely in the sun,” she argues mildly. She’s already in the running for one of the strangest people Blake has ever met, but in spite of this, Blake doesn’t feel as if she’s in any danger and continues engaging her.

“Okay,” Blake says. 

“I was.”

“Right.” 

“Look, it’s sunny - oh.” She cuts herself off, glancing around; a cool crawl of clouds have briefly obscured the light. “Hm. Well that’s no fun.” She tilts her face towards the sky, stretches out a hand lazily, almost like a wave, and Blake watches in confusion as the clouds don’t blow onward on their course, but somehow dissipate entirely; the girl smiles. “There,” she says. “That’s better.” 

“Um,” Blake says brilliantly, furrowing her brow. “You didn’t do that.”

“I did,” she confirms. “I don’t normally show off for girls I’ve just met, but _you’re_ gorgeous.”

“No, like, that’s impossible,” Blake denies, running through every other explanation. Freak evaporation, maybe. A higher gust so strong the clouds scattered the exact moment she blinked. 

The girl frowns, studying her. She raises a hand to her chin like she’s thinking. “Where are you from?” she asks. 

“Menagerie,” Blake says, violating every childhood rule she’d ever been taught about revealing personal information to strangers. The girl’s mouth relaxes into a smile at the response. 

“Make sense,” she says, more to herself than Blake, and takes a step closer, extending a hand. “I’m Yang.” 

Blake reaches out, grasps Yang’s fingers in hers. “Yang.” She repeats the name and hesitates at the weight of it, like it’s something important she can’t quite place it in her memory. “I’m Blake. Belladonna.” 

“Blake Belladonna,” Yang says, dropping her arm. “Beautiful name for a beautiful girl.” 

“Are you hitting on me?” Blake asks. It’s the third time Yang’s commented on her appearance, though Blake’s not sure why; she’s dressed plainly, her bow covering her ears and her hair tied up with a regular black band. 

“Depends,” Yang says coyly. “Are you single?” 

“Yes,” Blake answers, amused. 

“Then yes.” 

She doesn’t know whether to laugh or run away. She settles on a subdued version of the former, finally choosing to smile back. “That’s pretty forward of you.” 

“What can I say,” Yang replies easily, shrugging. “I’m forward. And a little blunt, probably. I don’t ask a lot of girls out.” 

“I never would have guessed,” Blake says. The wind rustles gently through the trees, toying with her hair. “What are you doing out here, anyway?” 

“Just checking on things,” Yang says nonchalantly. “You know, make sure it’s all up to code.” She gestures to the off-color dirt. “Like that. That’s definitely wrong.” 

“It does look...out of place,” Blake says, cocking her head. 

“Grimm,” Yang says. “Sometimes their energy permeates the ground, kills what it touches.” She walks back over, resumes her original position, her fingers skimming across the surface of the soil, before--

She places her palm flat, shuts her eyes, and Blake watches the dirt bubble, like it’s being boiled underneath the surface; the color corrects, the corruption somehow draining from it, and grass begins fluttering up around Yang’s hand, matching the rest of the area. Blake gazes on in silence, lips parted in surprise. 

Yang raises her arm, stands back up; grass unfolds from underneath her palm, and the patch looks pristine, untouched. Yang says, “We can’t let tainted areas grow. They kill what they touch and attract more Grimm, and that’s my Tuesday evening wasted.” 

“How did you do that?” Blake breathes out, staring blankly at her. 

Yang grins. “Magic,” she says. 

“Seriously.”

“I’m being serious.” 

“No you’re not,” Blake snaps, the pressure of unrelenting confusion finally getting to her. “Tell me the truth.” 

Yang’s eyebrows raise at the demand, the tone, like people don’t often talk to her the way Blake’s talking to her now. She says, “You’re getting more interesting by the second.” 

“Okay,” Blake says, adjusting her backpack on her shoulders and stepping around her. “I’m leaving.”

“Why?” Yang asks, following. “Because I can do magic?” 

“No, because you’re making fun of me,” Blake says. “And I’m supposed to meet my friends.”

“I’m not making fun of you,” Yang says. 

Blake spins around, and Yang stops just behind her, waiting expectantly. “Prove it,” she challenges. 

Yang smirks widely, taking her hands out of her pockets. “Gladly,” she says. “Keep walking.” 

“What?” 

“Keep walking,” Yang repeats, “and I’ll prove it.” 

Blake turns around slowly, eyeing Yang cautiously, waiting for a trick or a trap. Yang gestures her on. Blake takes a step, and a step, and another step; nothing changes in front of her, nothing shifts or moves: the sun still shines brightly down, the breeze sweeps through the trees, the path extends on in front of her. She can hear Yang still following behind, and so she stops, whirls around, and--

“See?” she starts, fully expecting more of the same, “you’re--” and her voice falls apart in her throat, eyes widening.

Behind her are outlines of her footprints, but they’re surrounded by a sudden spring of bouquets, flowers sprouting up and growing around every place she’d stepped. The furthest back boasts a five-foot tall sunflower, its stem twisting and arching towards the sunlight. Yang is grinning, entirely too pleased with herself, Blake’s reaction apparently exactly what she’d been aiming for.

“--not fucking with me,” she finishes, gazing at the petals of a rose unfurling. 

“Nope,” Yang says cheerfully. “I’m not.” 

“How?” Blake says, still in shock. “How do you - this is _insane!_ ” 

“It’s a long story,” Yang says, running a hand through her hair. “I don’t really have the time to tell it now, but I’d love to tell it to you over dinner sometime.” 

Blake blinks at her, jaw still slightly unhinged, unable to respond. Yang seems to understand, pulls out her scroll, and shoots a quick text to someone before Blake finally answers, “Uh, I have to get out of here,” and turns on her heel, stalking away. 

Yang laughs from behind her. “I’ll see you around, gorgeous,” she calls. “You’re in my neck of the woods now. Get it?” 

Blake smiles without even knowing why, without realizing she’s doing it, and quickly snaps the expression away when she does, her heart tangling itself up in her chest. She throws a glance over her shoulder, but when she looks back, Yang is gone; in her place is a single lavender forget-me-not.

\--

Sun and Neptune are waiting with drinks in their hands at the end of the trail, which pours out into a park; they’re sitting on a bench, talking animatedly about something when they see her approach. The town raises up behind them, the clock tower, the busyness of main street, the shops and bars and restaurants. It’s a quaint town, the kind where every patron is a regular, where not everybody knows everybody but knows enough. Sun wraps her in a one-armed hug, passing her a iced coffee. She takes it appreciatively, thanking them; she hadn’t realized how badly she needed the caffeine, though her go-to is usually tea. 

Neptune tugs on her ponytail, grinning. “And what do you call _this_ look?” he asks as they begin to lead her off. 

“‘Tired of traveling’,” she says. “I’m thinking of getting into fashion.”

“I tried that,” Neptune agrees seriously. “It’s fun in theory, but the actual design...talk about a lot of work.” 

“Especially when you can’t draw for shit,” Sun adds. Neptune bumps his shoulder, rolls his eyes. 

“You wait until I get into painting,” Neptune says. “If writing doesn’t work out for me, that’s my next move.” 

“Nerd.” 

“Intellectual,” he corrects. 

“Anyway,” Sun says, turning back to Blake, “how was the hike? You don’t _look_ like you were attacked.” 

“I wasn’t,” she affirms. “Although - I don’t know. Are your woods haunted or something? I met this girl--”

“ _You?_ ” Neptune asks, faking shock. “You talked to a _girl?_ ” 

“Shut up,” she says, and she thinks of telling them the truth but can’t. “I met this girl and she - I don’t know. It’s crazy. She hit on me, like, five times in the span of ten minutes. She asked me out to dinner.” 

“Was she hot?” Sun asks.

“Oh, God,” Blake sighs without thinking about it, an automatic response. It’s all she’d reminisced on the last half hour of her hike, the almost _unearthliness_ of Yang’s appearance, her otherworldly allure, her charm, her attraction. She hadn’t been able to focus on it at the time, hadn’t been able to quantify it, comprehend it, but the distance had given her clarity, and, well--“Yeah. She’s probably the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in my life.” 

“Do you know where she lives?” Neptune asks. “If she was on the trails, she’s gotta be from around here.” 

“No,” Blake says. “She just said she’d see me around.”

“Oh, cryptic,” Neptune muses. “A gorgeous girl who will apparently find you when the time is right. I can work with this. But a guy, obviously.” 

“Obviously,” Blake says dryly. “I’m glad my experience has been of some inspiration to you.” 

“What was she doing?” Sun asks. “Hiking, like you? You’re soulmates, clearly.” 

“No,” Blake says, gazing off at the opposite street corner, waiting for a glint of blonde hair in the crowd. “She was...just _there_.” 

“Spooky,” Neptune says. “Did she seem _normal,_ though? Like, she wasn’t out there burying a body.” 

“He’s been reading too much mystery,” Sun explains. Blake laughs.

“Honestly?” Blake says, smiling to herself, thinking of daisies and roses and peonies blooming beneath her feet. “No. Not even close.”

\--

 _Where r u?_ the text reads. _Hurry up im very busy & important._

Yang rolls her eyes, steps out of the trunk of a tree and into a garden; it’s a place she and Ruby had made when they were younger, somewhere to escape to when it all became too much to bear at one time, when the pressure caved in on them. Their treehouse still grows just behind it, the bark and wood warped from the inside out without damage to create the rooms. She follows the stone path, breathing in the scent of lavender and mint.

The sky suddenly darkens ominously overhead, clouds gathering and rolling, electricity sizzling in the air. She sighs, raising her hood over her head; this is one she _is_ prepared to fight.

“You’re late,” a voice calls, booming like thunder. 

Yang glances up at the sky and scowls. “Ruby, I _swear,_ ” she threatens. “I already had to deal with Weiss’s fucking thunderstorm today. I’m not putting up with yours, too.” 

The clouds dissipate entirely, save for one, and a red blur suddenly streaks to the ground, landing hard; Ruby stands up, cracking her neck from side to side, popping her joints into place. 

“Levitating that long really takes it out of ya,” she says. 

“Any reason for the dramatics?” Yang asks, pulling off her hood. “I would’ve kicked your ass if you’d made it rain on me again.” 

“Weiss’s meltdown was that bad, huh?” Ruby infers, wincing. “She texted me, but I had a pretty wild day, and I couldn’t make it over to Atlas in time.” 

“An undercover group of her father’s is trying to mine Dust,” Yang explains tiredly, finally steppings forward to hug her sister. “Weiss keeps having to cave in their tunnels so they don’t blow her kingdom up - they don’t realize how dangerous it is. They think they’ve evolved from the last time they tried it.” 

“She’s not, like, _hurting_ people, is she?” Ruby asks, concerned, taking a seat on one of the stone benches.

“No, no,” Yang waves away, sitting next to her. “That’s the reason she’s so pissed off. Waiting for the tunnels to clear is taking up a lot of her time. I told her she should either flood them or curse them.” 

Ruby snickers. “We can’t _curse_ stuff.” 

“No, but we can make people _think_ stuff is cursed,” Yang says, smirking evilly. “I’ve always wanted to start up a good ghost story, just for the hell of it. There’s a super old ruin in Shor that I’ve thought about, like, staking out to scare tourists.” 

Ruby laughs louder. “I want in. Text me when you do it.”

“Sure thing.”

“Do they know it’s Weiss?” she continues. “Like, I’m sure Winter’s put it together.” 

“I think Winter’s on Weiss’s side,” Yang says. “She tends to trust Weiss’s instincts. Thank God her fucking brother doesn’t have a say in any of this. He’s such a brat.”

Ruby pulls a disgusted face. “Ugh, yeah.” 

“You should give her a call - stop by if you can,” Yang says. “She definitely would’ve preferred to deal with you over me.” 

“Yeah, well,” Ruby says noncommittally. “Haven’s at the beginnings of an uprising - the class gap is just, like, insane in the inner-city. But all that negative energy - God, I’m exhausted.” 

“Need any help?” Yang looks at her in concern. 

“Nah,” she says, leaning back on her hands. “I’ve got it under control, and the guard takes care of what I don’t.” 

“Okay,” Yang says. “Well, anyway, _please_ go see Weiss. She’s too much for me to deal with. I don’t know how you do it regularly.”

“I will, I will,” Ruby says, grinning. “God, remember in our last life when Ironwood had just taken over the military and thought he could ignore her? He had plans for an oceanic military base or whatever and it would’ve totally destroyed the ecosystem.” 

Yang laughs loudly. “Didn’t she literally snow him in his house for a week?” 

“I think it was three,” Ruby says. “And she iced it over. Nobody could get to him.” 

“She’s always so dramatic,” Yang says fondly. “Maybe that’s where you’ve started picking it up from. What is it about _this_ life, anyway?”

Ruby shrugs. “I really don’t know,” she says. “I think it was always there. Like, even in the last one it was there, but we didn’t do anything about it that I can remember. I mean, we don’t retain everything though, so, who knows.” 

“I met a girl today,” Yang reveals, smiling underneath the setting sun. Ruby glances over at her, surprised. “She was hiking the trail in Forever Fall, but far down the line, on the border of Idel. She was like, beautiful. She kinda freaked out over the magic thing, though.” 

“What, really?” Ruby says. “That’s a weird reaction.” 

“She’s from Menagerie,” Yang explains. “We’ve never been needed there, so she wasn’t...used to the idea.” 

“Oh, gotcha,” Ruby says, and shoots her a sly look. “Look at you, finally having a crush after all these years. Go get her.” 

“I want to die,” Yang declares theatrically, burying her face in her hands, Blake’s smile painting itself across the front of her mind.

Ruby laughs again. “Yeah _right,_ ” she says, eyes alight. “Like death ever solves anyof _our_ problems.”

\--

“Here,” Sun says, pushing open the first door situated in the hallway, “this room’s yours. We’ve already put the rest of your shit in the closet.” 

She blinks, somewhat surprised at the hominess of it, the charming decoration almost suited to her tastes; the bedspread is a shade of purple she’s sure they’d picked out for her, the furniture a little more modern than traditional. Sun continues, “Your bathroom’s through there” --he points to another doorway-- “and our room is at the end of the hall. Neptune’s study is the room next to yours. And we already passed the living room and kitchen, so that’s about it.” 

Blake steps in, drops her bag near the foot of the bed; the house itself is quaint, but still bigger than she thought it’d be. Idly, she realizes they must be planning on actually staying put for awhile to splurge on property like this. She turns back to him. “And it’s really okay if I live here for the spring?”

“Absolutely!” Sun says, Neptune nodding agreeably beside him. “Spring’s the best season in Vale. Besides, think of this as a debt repaid for all the summers you spent entertaining us in Menagerie.” 

“I don’t want to be a burden,” she says honestly, glancing between the two of them. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m disrupting your life.” 

Neptune laughs. “Blake, our lifestyle literally _revolves_ around disruption.” 

“Yeah, ‘cause _someone_ can’t choose a career path,” Sun says pointedly. 

“I’ve chosen,” Neptune says. “I’m writing.” 

“That’s what you said about photography.”

“That was a fleeting interest at _best,_ ” Neptune argues. “I need variety. I have to sample my options. How else will I know what I truly love to do?” 

“How _New Money_ of you,” Blake teases. Neptune’s wealthy upbringing had been so vastly different from hers that it’s become an inside joke between them. “Family expectations are _so_ much lower.” 

Neptune grins at her. _“New Money_ doesn’t pressure me into a job I hate just to keep up appearances,” he says. 

She sighs heavily. “And that’s one of the many reasons I needed to get away,” she allows. “ _Old Money_ sure does.”

“You people and your _money,_ ” Sun says. “Well, not Blake, I guess, since she actually held a job or whatever.” 

“Please don’t remind me. I’m trying to forget about it.” 

“Sheesh, really that bad?” Sun asks, leaning against the doorframe and crossing his arms, tail flicking aimlessly behind him. 

“Worse.” Blake grimaces. “Politics didn’t exactly agree with me. Not the way Adam handled them, anyway.” 

Sun and Neptune both exchange even expressions of disgust. Neptune rustles a hand through his hair. “Well, we’re both glad you’re out of that,” he says nicely. “And honestly, you can stay as long as you’d like.”

“Seriously, it’s cool,” Sun adds. “We actually _like_ having you around.”

“Okay,” Blake relents. “But the minute you start thinking about how much nicer it was before I got here, tell me, and I’m out. Promise.” 

Neptune actually snickers and pats her on the head affectionately, right between her ears. She grimaces at the gesture; it’s something he does when he’s teasing her, air of fake condescension about him.

“Oh, introverts,” he says loftily. “You’re always so in your damn _heads_ all the time.” 

“Is there somewhere else I’m supposed to be?” Blake calls as he leaves, Sun trailing behind him with a single wink thrown back, and the only response she gets is laughter.

\--

They order in for dinner - Neptune says he refuses to cook for Blake when she isn’t awake enough to appreciate it - and wind up spread across the couch, eating pizza and watching a true crime documentary that only Neptune really pays attention to, Sun humoring him with questions every once in awhile. She drifts off for a bit listening to their voices, their jokes and jabs, and she realizes that if there’s anything she’s missed, it’s been simply having friends who care about her.

\--

Yang’s sitting on a fallen log, waiting boredly for the all-clear from Qrow before going home for the night; there’d been signs of strange activity on the outskirts of Signal, but it wasn’t clear if they were human or Grimm related. She plays with vinework, growing visions of snakes and burning them, thinking about the only thing she’d been thinking about all day: Blake, her hair tied back and her lips in an arch, beautiful and sad.

“Aren’t you a pretty little thing,” a voice croons in Yang’s ear, knife sliding suddenly against her throat.

She blinks dazedly, sighs as he forces her up into a standing position. Well, that’s what she gets for dreaming about a girl with a pretty smile alone in the middle of the woods; she hadn’t even heard them approach over her own idle cracking of wood. “Seriously?” she asks, grimacing. The man’s hands are dirty, nails broken, calloused. Bandits, probably. “Though I guess better me than anyone else.” 

“What?” the voice snarls, confused and annoyed. “What are you talkin’ about?” 

Another man walks around front, looking her up and down, taking her in. His expression speaks to a fear the both of them should feel - an age-old instinct warning them of danger - but he’s clearly trying to push past it for show. He twirls a dagger between his fingers absently. 

“What’s wrong?” Yang asks lowly, staring up at him. “Do I look familiar?” 

He raises his eyebrows, swallows. “No,” he spits out, though she catches him shaking. “Why?” 

She meets his eyes and smiles widely with her teeth, gleaming from the darkness; she raises a hand, curls her fingers around the other man’s wrist tightly. He starts in surprise, tugging his arm, careful not to actually slit her throat. Like he could. 

The man in front of her takes a step forward, pointing his dagger at her, but she can see the hesitance, the warning too loud for him to ignore--

Her hand ignites, and the one holding her screams loudly, the skin of his wrist burning a shiny, raw pink. Her smile grows, the man in front of her stumbling backwards in shock, falling to the forest floor. 

“Oh shit,” he whispers. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit--” 

The knife falls away, digging itself into the dirt. She turns around, fingers grasping the front plate of his armor and bending it like rubber, hoisting him up into the air. His eyes are wide, tears streaming from the pain of his wrist; he fights violently to get out of her grip but can’t. 

“Do I look familiar now?” she asks sinisterly, irises a dangerous red. 

“Oh, fuck!” the man on the ground lets out a strangled yell. “It’s fucking - it’s - fuck--” 

“I’m sorry,” the one held aloft chokes out. “I’m - sorry--” 

“I’ve had a long day,” she murmurs, every word sounding like the threat of death. “And if this is how you normally pick up women, I don’t think I’m going to let it slide.” 

\--

She tosses their bodies like ragdolls in front of the large wooden door, seething, steaming; the man and woman on guard watch her, terrified, fearful, and knowing better than to make a single move. She stares directly at the woman, her eyes burning with fire and flames, and says dangerously, “Tell _mom_ that if she doesn’t teach her men some fucking respect, I’ll kill them all. I don’t care if they’re Branwens. That name means nothing to me.” She pauses, waiting for the words to make their impact. “Am I clear?”

“Y-yes,” the woman stammers, knuckles white around her sword. 

“Good.” Yang glances disdainfully around the camp. “Because I’ll tear this whole fucking place apart if they pull a stunt like that again.” She nudges the closest one on the ground with her toe; he winces feebly. 

“Understood,” the woman says.

Yang’s stare bores into the men on ground a moment longer, their bodies bruised and bloody. The front of the closest man’s armor still bears the impression of her fingers, warped and melted.

“Don’t think I won’t be watching,” she says menacingly, and turns her back to them all.

\--

“Nothing like family,” Qrow says casually from a tree as she storms past. 

“Ugh,” Yang says, lip curling disgustedly. Her eyes fade back to lavender as she looks up at him. _Tree_ , of course, that’s what she should’ve done. “How are you related to that woman? How am _I?_ ” 

“Magic sure is a kick,” Qrow says agreeably. “Wanna tell me what’s wrong? That wasn’t a normal outburst from you, and we both know you’re not gonna kill anyone.” 

She sighs. Qrow always manages to see straight through her into whatever’s underneath. She shifts the earth, ground rising to his level, depositing her right beside him on a branch; it falls back down, surface leveling out. She says, “Just like, seriously? I see her fucking _tribe_ more than I see her. She didn’t want me, so why am _I_ still dealing with _her_ messes?” 

“Are you still angry with her for abandoning you?” Qrow asks casually. “Even after all these years?” 

Yang’s fingers dig against the bark; she kicks her feet idly, gaze averted down. “No,” she says at last. “Sometimes I’m angry with how much I understand. She just wanted a normal life. The life she’d been raised thinking she’d have.” She pauses, biting the inside of her lip, like she’s ashamed of what she’s about to admit. “Sometimes I wish _I_ could have a normal life, too.” 

That seems to surprise Qrow more than anything else; they’re always so historically suited to their positions, without complaint, without resentment. He says, “What’s prompted this outlook?” 

She thinks of Blake automatically again, her heart pounding throughout her entire body, traveling down the roots and into the earth, running wild. Running away, or maybe running towards. “I don’t know,” she murmurs. “I guess I’m just...lonely.” 

He rubs a hand against the top of her head and she winces; he knows she hates having her hair touched, but he’s not the best at showing affection. He says, “Yeah,” and takes back his arm. “I get that.” 

She doesn’t say anything else; he glances down at her, studying the way her shoulders droop, her mouth in a slight frown. “I’ll deal with Raven and her followers for awhile,” he says. “Don’t worry about it. They’ll definitely pack up and move after tonight, anyway.” 

She shrugs, but she’s internally relieved, tired of having to face her, think about her, hate her. “Okay,” she says. “Thanks, Qrow.” 

“Hang in there, firecracker,” he says, and in an instant he is gone, wings brushing by in the wind. 

\--

Blake spends most of the next day getting to know the town, wandering up and down its cobbled streets, over its bridges and roads; it really _is_ beautiful, somehow a step above every other place she’s visited, like a concentrated explosion of growth radiates from the center of it. She walks near the water for awhile, following canals and smaller boats and bikes, watching the way people go about their daily business. She memorizes the neighborhood, the street names, the quickest route to the town center and back, restaurants and bars and shops. 

Sun has classes to teach until four - he’d walked her to his studio that morning, a plain, unassuming building where a gaggle of children were spread out on the mats inside, stretching; _you’re gonna have to get used to living here,_ he’d told her before letting her go, _it’s your space, now, too_ \- and so she keeps herself busy, browsing stores, still not quite in the right mindset to sit down and _think._ About her goals, her motivations, all the things she’d run away from, all the people she’d hurt. She spies a ‘help wanted’ sign on a bookshop window and files it away for reasons she’s unsure of; she’s not planning on staying _that_ long, but something about it sticks with her.

She meets Sun after his last class ends, and he’s toweling off his head, sweat over his forehead; he greets her with a wide grin and a one-armed hug, which she struggles to wiggle out of. “Oh, gross,” she whines, pushing away from him. “Take a shower first.” 

He only laughs. “Sure,” he says, releasing her. “Ready to go?” 

“Yep,” she says, and he swings his bag over his shoulder. A small boy runs up to him before he gets the chance to move, arms wrapping around his leg. Sun glances down, grins. 

“What’s up, buddy?” he asks. “Did you have fun today?” 

“Yeah!” the boy says excitedly, and points to Blake. “Who’s this?! Your wife?!” 

Sun laughs; Blake fights against a grimace, disgusted at the prospect. He’s a little better of an actor than her. “No, she’s just a friend,” he says nicely. “I have a boyfriend at home, though. He’s way cooler than her. His hair is _blue._ ” 

“Woah,” the boy says, mouth open, eyes wide. “That’s so _cool._ ” 

“I know,” Sun agrees. “I gotta go hang out with him now, but I’ll see you on Friday. Sound good?” 

“Yeah!” he says. “Bye Master Sun! Bye Sun’s friend!” 

Sun turns away, catching her eye and sniggering as the boy runs off; Blake’s covering her grin with her hand. “Cute,” she says. “Master Sun, huh?” 

“Shut up,” he says, nudging her shoulder lightly, pushing the door open. “They’re supposed to call me Master, but it feels so weird.”

“It doesn’t really fit you,” she says, “but it’s adorable.”

“What’d you do today?” he asks her. “Anything productive?” 

“Totally,” she says. “I can now navigate the town center _without_ the help of my maps app.” 

“Amazing,” Sun agrees seriously. 

She laughs once. “It’s not too big a place,” she says, looking fondly around as they walk. “It reminds me a little of Menagerie.” 

“Yeah, it’s easy to get used to,” Sun says, automatically holding out an arm to halt her at a light; she’s long used to this, a habit he’s developed to stop Neptune from absentmindedly wandering out into traffic. “I actually love it here a lot more than I thought I would.” 

“It _is_ beautiful,” Blake says as they start to walk again. 

“Yeah,” he says. “There’s like, something in the air. I don’t really know how to explain it. It’s just _nice._ ” 

She thinks of Yang waving clouds away with the flick of her wrist, gardens springing from damp, empty earth, the way the wind always flutters perfectly through the sky. “Yeah,” she says distantly. “Maybe that’s it.”

\--

Neptune _does_ cook that night - he sears salmon with a garlic-lemon butter sauce, and clearly his one year at culinary school paid off - and she promises him she’ll take over the next night, so they’d better give her some recommendations. Neptune waves her away; as long as it’s because you _want_ to, he says, and not because you feel like you _need_ to. 

She’s hit with the reminder again that they really do _enjoy_ her company, care about her as a person, and thinks about telling him she loves him, loves them both. Her throat closes slightly. She doesn’t say anything, only smiles genuinely at him. He seems to understand.

She steps outside afterward to clear her head, put some space between herself and the walls of a place she’s not even sure she should be despite insistence otherwise. She recognizes where the influence comes from, why she’s her own opposition; it’s all Adam, his voice, his spite, his hatred. _You’re a coward._ She can still hear him shouting the words at her. _You’re mine._ She isn’t. She won’t ever be again.

No, she corrects herself; I wasn’t his in the first place, wasn’t anything to own. It’s almost a daily mantra, the reminder that she’s allowed to be _hers._

She walks aimlessly along the road, passing by the neighboring houses, and absentmindedly follows a path leading off their street towards the treeline. The town’s famous for its landscape, scenic trails peppering every route out, and she doesn’t think much of it, doesn’t fear the darkness of the forest. Something about it comforts her, the broken canopy of the trees keeping her safe, slices of moonlight peppering her path. Sun had mentioned a type of border security around the actual town itself, anyway, so she doesn’t fear any kind of attack, the idea not even crossing her mind.

The trail eventually skitters out, empties into a lush clearing that seems to beckon her, emanating the kind of peace she feels so desperately missing from her life. She steps forward through the grass and exhales, head falling back, stare turning skyward.

The stars are more beautiful here, glittering across space like rings, necklaces, loose gemstones rolling through a jewelry box. She finds an empty, distant sort of calm in them, a presence that doesn’t have to tie her to the earth. She unclenches her fists, rotating her shoulders up and back, dropping tension.

The sounds are sweeter, too; the gentle hum of insects, the quiet buzz of the town behind her, the wind stroking the leaves, the grass. There’s a light brush against her ankle, and she glances down automatically, only to find--

Flowers are growing from around her feet, daisies, dandelions, natural enough to the landscape to make it look like an accident. She knows it’s not, and her gaze whips around the clearing, searching. 

“Yang?” she calls tentatively, heartbeat fluttering.

“Yes?” a voice answers whimsically. 

Blake’s eyes narrow. She can see perfectly in the dark, and Yang isn’t anywhere instantly visible. “Where are you?” 

“Up here,” Yang says, and waves to get her attention; Blake automatically zeroes in on her, sitting casually in amongst the branches of a tall tree like it’s a normal, everyday occurrence. 

Blake blinks, more taken aback by the sight than anything else. Yang kicks her foot lazily, leaning back against the trunk. “What are you doing up there?” 

“Thinking,” Yang says. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“Are you following me?” Blake accuses, her brain finally catching up with her mouth. Yang merely rolls her eyes, something Blake can tell even from a distance. 

“No,” she says. “If anything, _you_ seem to be following _me._ ” 

“Oh, my mistake,” Blake says dryly. “You’re right. I should’ve _known_ you’d be here.” 

Yang laughs and sits up, rests her hands against the bark, her other leg swinging over the side. Blake realizes what she’s about to do the second before she does it, and her eyes widen, arm raising, stangled yell sticking to her throat as Yang slips out of the tree--

She lands gracefully on both feet, almost like she’d floated down rather than fell, and Blake catches herself on a panicked step forward, mouth still open in a warning. Flowers spawn around her shoe. Yang shoots her a strange look. “What?” she asks teasingly. “Thought I’d hurt myself?” 

“Most people can’t just leap out of trees,” Blake manages, her heart pumping away its fear; not of the apparently indestructible girl herself, with her bizarre abilities and possibly-stalking tendencies, but of almost seeing her _hurt._

“Well, I’m not most people.” 

“Obviously.” 

Yang smiles, walking towards her. The jacket from yesterday is gone, replaced instead with soft, brown cardigan over a fern-green shirt, and she’s wearing dark denim jeans tucked into brown boots. A necklace hangs around her neck, and her hair’s in a loose, messy braid over her shoulder. She says, “What _are_ you doing out here, anyway?” 

Blake surreptitiously glances her up and down, but she looks as physically uninjured as she says she is; she also looks _good,_ and Blake can’t stop herself from noticing. The only difference is in her eyes: gentler, kinder, sadder. Blake mirrors honestly, “Thinking.” 

“About what?” Yang asks, turning her gaze to the patch of sky where Blake had been staring previously. 

“What I’m doing here,” Blake says, the confession spilling out of her like a river. “I don’t know if it was the right move. But I didn’t have many options, and I’m not used to...having people to rely on.” She pauses, slightly startled by her own admission, and why she’s even telling Yang at all. “What were you thinking about?” she probes instead, eager to force the attention off herself.

But Yang only says, “You.” 

Blake scowls, throwing a mild glare her way. “You’re making fun of me again.” 

“I’m not,” she says, shrugging her shoulders like she’s recognizing she’s revealing something she shouldn’t. “I was thinking about you.” 

It’s hard for Blake to doubt the admission when it’s uttered so accidentally. “Why?” 

“Do I scare you?” Yang asks unexpectedly, and Blake finally meets her eyes, surprised. There’s a vulnerability in them she hadn’t expected to find, an uncertainty. “Seriously.” 

Blake bites the inside of her lip, the answer pushing at the backs of her teeth. Yang waits patiently in front of her, wild blonde hair curling gently in the breeze, lavender of her irises so delicate of a color Blake gets the impression they may shatter into another at any given moment. Her mouth rests in a worried line, though it looks as if she’s trying to hide it, keep her expression neutral and unassuming. 

That’s the thing, Blake thinks; the answer _should_ be yes. Yang’s popped into her life twice in two days, seemingly serendipitous, with power Blake can’t even comprehend, let alone reconcile exists in the first place. The answer should be yes, but it’s not. 

“No,” she admits, and Yang visibly relaxes, brushing off a weight she’d been apparently been angsting over. “You don’t. You’re - you’re strange, but I don’t feel like I’m in danger, or anything.”

Yang smiles cutely; the moon glows just a little brighter. “You aren’t,” she says, and adds cryptically, “You’re actually _safest_ when you’re with me.”

“And why’s that?” Blake asks. 

Her smile shifts in a way Blake can’t put into words, can’t peg down; not threatening, but not nice, either. It’s a sultry kind of _knowing._ “Because,” she says, “ _I’m_ the most powerful thing out here.” 

Blake swallows, desperately fighting back against the sexiness of the statement; she digs her nails into her palm, stops herself from the brief, flashing instinct to grab Yang and kiss her, push her back against the tree, wrap her hands in her hair. Yang quirks an eyebrow, examining her expression. 

“You okay?” she asks. “Did _that_ freak you out?” 

“No,” Blake manages, realizing she’d been staring, daydreaming. “It didn’t...freak me out.” Her tongue sweeps over her bottom lip. “I think I’m just tired.” 

“It’s late,” Yang says, still a bit concerned. “You’ve been traveling, right?”

“Yeah,” Blake says. “I’m staying with friends for the spring.” 

“That’s exhausting for anyone,” Yang reasons. “Let me walk you home.” 

Blake doesn’t decline Yang’s offer, but she doesn’t accept it, either; Yang comes along of her own will - for her own peace of mind, she says - and the conversation flows easily like it’s natural, both of them talking openly and laughing. Blake can’t remember giggling so much, can’t remember the last time she felt so comfortable outside of herself, wasn’t afraid of being seen. 

Yang doesn’t follow her right up to the door, just waits patiently on the pavement underneath a streetlight, watching her; she waves adorably when Blake unlocks the door, and Blake smiles over her shoulder. Her footprints are marked in the yard by outlines of flowers, the same as in the clearing, a little scaled down as to not attract attention. 

Blake rolls her eyes, but secretly, she hopes they’re still there in the morning. 

\--

She dreams about Yang that night, a sea colored in lavender and the smell of fire over the shore, distant trees slipping up in smoke; the ocean recedes, raises high, and Yang stands underneath the towering waves with a smile and glowing red eyes. She walks to up to Blake standing on the sand, the sea waving behind her like a kite. Blake feels like crying, her throat shut tight and choking, her heart ramming itself against her ribcage. 

Don’t worry, Yang says, and presses her lips to Blake’s ear. Nothing can stop me. Not while you’re here.

She wakes up to the taste of salt, and all she remembers is the color red.

\--

“Up and at ‘em, princess,” Sun announces, knocking on her door; fortunately she’s already awake or she would’ve killed him mercilessly. “You said you wanted to join me on my morning run.” 

“I’m coming,” she calls, tying her hair back into a ponytail. “One minute.” 

“Meet you outside,” he says, and she hums in response. She leaves her room, passes by Neptune cooking sausage and bacon in the kitchen, bleary-eyed and still wearing his boxers and a t-shirt; he’s not really a morning person. 

Sun’s stretching on the sidewalk, but straightens up and tosses her a water bottle as she exits the front door. She catches it, grinning. “Thanks.” 

“No prob,” he says. “Ready? I usually run a little off the path, by the way; there are a few hills in the woods off of Argent that make for a good incline. It’s still marked, but we won’t run into as many people.” 

“Yeah, sounds good,” she says agreeably, glancing subtly around the yard; the flowers are still there, though they’re not as noticeable in the sunlight, more natural. 

“Just keep up,” he says, winking. 

“Yeah, yeah.” 

They don’t talk much during their actual run; they both have earphones in, streaming music they can forget about the burn of their legs to. She keeps pace with him perfectly, more out of determination than anything else; considering he literally works in physical fitness, his stamina definitely outstrips hers, though not by an overtly noticeable amount. Eventually they pause at the top of a hill, the trees sparse and flowing into an open field. A few benches litter the pathway, a water fountain marking a rest stop. 

She wipes away the sweat on her forehead, resting her hands on her knees, bent over. “I’m out of shape,” she says. 

“You looked great to me,” Sun says, refilling his water bottle. “The fact that you kept up at all is amazing. I thought I was gonna have to tone it down or something.” 

She scoffs, straightening and stretching. “No way,” she says. “I’m not _that_ out of shape.” 

He shrugs, raises a hand to signal she toss him her own bottle; she does so, and he catches it, unscrewing the top. “I’ll train you, if you want,” he offers. “You can join my mid-level class.” 

She laughs. “Oh, yeah? And what’s the median age there?” 

“About eight to ten,” he says earnestly. “You’ll fit right in.” 

“Jackass.” 

“You love me.” 

She doesn’t answer, still grinning at him. She does love him, but she’ll never tell him that, especially when he’s making jokes at her expense. She gives it up, stepping towards him to take her water bottle. He extends his arm, playful smile on his face, and then--

It slips right out of his hand, smacking against the dirt and rolling away. He doesn’t make a move to grab it. “What,” he asks, gazing at her feet, “is _that_ about?” 

She glances down, sighs heavily at the sight of tulips bubbling up around her. “ _Yang,_ ” she calls grumpily, “knock it off.” 

Sun stares, and stares, and stares. His eyes widen continuously, the effect somewhat frightening after a few seconds, like they may pop from their sockets at any given moment. Someone laughs in the trees, voice lost to the wind. 

“Um,” he says blankly, his entire expression comically over-exaggerated. “ _What?_ ” 

“It’s just Yang,” Blake says, more blasé with Sun around. “She’s the girl I ran into in the woods on my way here, and now I think she’s stalking me.” 

Laughter rings out again. Sun glances around, mouth hanging open, searching for the source of the noise. He rests his hands on her shoulders, finally lowering his eyes to hers. 

“Blake,” he says slowly, sounding vaguely terrified, “are you trying to tell me that you met the _Spring Maiden?_ ” 

“The what?” she asks, bewildered and a little uncomfortable at the weight of his intensity. 

“Yang,” he says. “The current Spring Maiden. She watches over the Kingdom of Vale.” 

“I’m not following.” 

“She’s a _legend,_ ” Sun expresses vehemently. “She has _magical powers._ ” 

“I’d gathered,” Blake says. “She keeps growing flowers wherever I walk.”

He shakes her suddenly. “The Spring Maiden!” he repeats loudly, like the words should mean something to her. “Yang Xiao Long! She’s like, an all-powerful being with ancient mystical abilities! What the fuck is _wrong_ with you!? Don’t you know the story of _The Four Maidens_?! Do you listen _at all_ when I talk!?” 

She raises her eyebrows mildly, a spark coming to her at the mention. “Sort of,” she says, screwing up her face into an expression of concentration. “But Menagerie doesn’t have one, so, it wasn’t really like...a thing.” 

“Oh my God,” Sun says dramatically. “I think I’m gonna pass out.” 

“Relax,” Blake says, not really understanding his theatrical behavior. “Either way, she’s following me.” 

“You _dumbass,_ ” Sun says. “She’s not following you. This is - this is all _hers._ ” He gestures around him. “Vale owes her _everything._ She could wipe us all out if she wanted, but she protects us instead. Like Pyrrha in Vacuo, Ruby in Haven, Weiss in Atlas - the land is all _theirs._ ” 

“Oh, come on,” a voice suddenly calls from the treeline. “I’m not a _psychopath._ I’m not gonna, like, kill a bunch of innocent people.” 

Sun whips his head towards the source of the noise, starts to sweat profusely; Blake follows his gaze, and promptly rolls her eyes at the sight of Yang sitting casually on a tree trunk, grinning widely, legs spread and hands resting between her thighs on the wood. Sun gapes, jaw falling so slack Blake’s slightly disgusted by it. 

“What are you doing here?” Blake calls. “Aside from butting in on private conversations.” 

Yang laughs again, standing up and dusting off her hands. “Like he said,” she says, “this is _my_ kingdom. So technically, you’re on private property.” 

“Ha- _ha,_ ” Blake says sarcastically. 

“Oh my _God,_ ” Sun manages, looking pale and hot, sort of like he’s getting sunstroke. 

Yang ignores him, walks deliberately towards Blake; she’s a few steps away when the soil starts to shift around her, and a flower Blake recognizes vaguely as a type of lily croons up, bulb opening, petals curving around each other. Yang doesn’t look at it, but reaches out and picks it as she passes by, though even that wording isn’t quite right - it looks more like the flower cuts itself delicately and heals its stem, tosses itself into her waiting hands. She extends her arm to Blake, twirling the flower between her fingers. 

“What’s that?” Blake asks, amused despite herself. 

“It’s a Calla lily,” Yang says sweetly. “It’s for you.” 

“I’m allergic to lilies,” Blake says, accepting the flower anyway. 

Yang smiles. “You aren’t to anything I grow.” 

“Oh, and why’s that?” 

“Because I’m making them that way.”

“That’s impressive.”

Yang only shrugs, runs a hand through her long hair. “Well, what’s the use in being _all-powerful_ and shit if I can’t grow an allergy-free garden?” 

Blake giggles again, though every acknowledgment is somewhat against her will, like she doesn’t want Yang to know she’s genuinely enjoying her company in front of Sun. “I suppose that’s fair.”

“Oh my God!” Sun suddenly exclaims, like he’s just been slapped awake from a dream only to find he hadn’t been asleep in the first place. “Seriously?! It’s really _you_?!” 

“Always happy to meet a fan,” Yang says. Blake snickers; it’s not often she gets to see Sun put in his place, though she’s still confused on the details. “I don’t tend to do autographs, but I’ll make an exception for any friend of Blake’s.” 

“Holy shit,” Sun breathes out. “Oh my God. No fucking _way._ ” 

“This is Sun,” Blake provides. “He’s apparently your _biggest_ fan.”

Yang cocks her head to the side, examines him from top to bottom. “Hm,” she says. “That’s a little disappointing. He’s not really my type. I’d hoped _you’d_ have that title by now,” she directs at Blake. 

“I didn’t know who you were until literally five minutes ago, so I think I have some catching up to do before then,” Blake tells her teasingly.

Yang laughs, turns back to Sun. “No, I’m kidding. Hey, dude. Uh - thanks for your support, or whatever.” It’s clear she doesn’t spend a lot of time interacting with people who follow her; she seems more surprised at the reaction than anything, like she hasn’t put much thought into her public renown. 

“This is so fucking cool,” he says, starstruck, and reaches for his scroll. “Hey, can I take a pic with you?” 

“No,” Yang says apologetically, grimacing. “I don’t show up in photos. It’ll be you and a blur, spots of different colors. This isn’t my true form.” 

Sun almost drops his scroll. “Woah,” he exhales, astonished. “ _Really?_ ” 

“No,” Yang says, grinning, and Blake laughs loudly. “I’m just fucking with you. C’mere.” 

She drags him in, arm around his shoulders, and throws up a peace sign. He snaps it quickly, ducking away from her and smiling. “Oh, dude,” he says. “This is great. We both look hot.” 

“Let’s see,” she says, waving for the scroll. He hands it over, like she’s suddenly just another one of his friends and _not_ a living legend. She examines it for a second. “Actually, you’re right,” she says appreciatively. “Text that to Blake.” 

“What, why?” Blake asks.

“So you can text it to me,” Yang says, as if it should’ve been obvious. 

“I don’t have your number,” Blake points out.

Yang fakes surprise, lifts a hand, tapping a finger against her chin like she’s thinking. “Hm,” she says. “I guess I’ll have to give it to you.” 

Sun chokes on his laugh before it turns raucous, and even Blake can’t stop herself from joining in. Sun says, “That was the smoothest way of getting a girl’s number I’ve _ever_ seen.” 

“Not very subtle, though,” Blake adds, because she can’t just let her _have_ this one. 

Yang winks. “I told you,” she says. “I’m blunt.” 

Blake digs her scroll out of her back pocket, opens her contacts, and hands it over to Yang, who quickly inputs her number like she’s nervous Blake’s going to change her mind midway through. Blake tries to hide her smile, doesn’t succeed; Sun glances down at her and smirks. Yeah, she’s never going to hear the end of it. 

“There,” Yang says, handing her the device back. “Now you have my number. Feel free to use it _any_ time.” 

“I can’t believe the Spring Maiden is hitting on _you,_ ” Sun says, like Yang’s not literally standing right there. She seems amused by it more than anything else, though, so Blake doesn’t bother correcting his rudeness. “ _You,_ who doesn’t even know their _names,_ let alone what they can _do._ ” 

“Aw, it’s okay,” Yang says, reaching out and brushing Blake’s bangs away from her forehead, smiling sweetly. Blake’s pretty sure the touch lights her on fire, like a line of ash is about to fall from her skin, her breath getting lost in her lungs. “It’s different. I like it.” 

Blake can’t respond, and there’s that feeling again, like she’s rooted to the ground, like she’s just another thing Yang’s growing from the earth, her face falling open; Yang’s expression shifts the barest hint, and for a moment, Blake swears she can _see_ her, see into her soul, not like a book but like a window, a doorway, a home.

Sun says, “I think you killed her,” when another few seconds go by without a word.

“I hope not,” Yang says, but her voice isn’t as steady as it was previously. “Otherwise I can’t ask her to dinner again.” 

“Um,” Blake says, oddly affected. “Maybe you can do that...later.” 

It’s not a rejection, and Yang doesn’t seem to take it as one; she nods, taking a step back. “Sure thing,” she says casually. “I’ve got some business to take care of, anyway. Maybe I’ll see you later, Blake. Text me.”

“Definitely,” Blake says, her mouth dry. 

“Nice meeting you, Sun,” Yang says nicely, a sentiment he echoes.

She turns, walking back towards the treeline. She rest a hand against the bark of a particularly large oak, and it opens in a way Blake isn’t even sure how to describe - it folds in on itself, almost as if creating a cave. Sun gasps beside her, fascinated. Yang throws them a last look back and a wave, steps through the archway, and then she is gone as it closes behind her.

They both stand unmoving, stunned. The breeze falters and dies; flowers still unravel against her calves. 

“Dude,” Sun finally says. 

“Yeah,” Blake says, preoccupied. 

“That was fucking _insane!”_ he exclaims, raising his hands to his head. “Holy shit! What the fuck! You’re dating the _Spring Maiden!_ ” 

“I’m not dating her,” Blake says, his yelling snapping her from her daze. 

“You will be,” he says. “Dude. She’s _hot._ She’s out-of-this-world hot. How are you gonna say no to _that?_ ” 

She frowns, but not because he’s wrong; Yang seems to only get _more_ attractive every time Blake sees her, like wildfire, thunder rolling around her heart in a warning sign. There’s something in her that can’t be contained, something Blake’s inexplicably drawn to. 

She sighs. “I’m not,” she says, and shoves her earphones back in her ears. “But I don’t want to talk about it.” 

He smirks broadly, following her lead, and they finish their run in silence.

\--

“I’m here, I’m here,” Yang says grumpily, dropping to the chair beside Pyrrha at the table before Weiss can open her mouth to complain. “Sorry. Did you order already?” 

Pyrrha wraps her in a hug. “No, it’s okay,” she says nicely. “We were all running a little behind today. We’ve only gotten drinks so far - that’s your mimosa.” She nods to a champagne flute beside Yang’s place setting.

“Oh, thanks,” Yang says appreciatively, clinking her glass against Pyrrha’s. She then raises her eyebrows, turns her stare to Weiss. “ _You_ were late?” 

Weiss rolls her eyes. “Yes,” she admits, obviously irritated, taking a sip of her own drink. She’s annoyingly punctual; nothing gets under her skin like tardiness. “Ironwood’s developing something at his tech headquarters in Atlas - his team’s nervousness is causing a spike in Grimm activity. It’s becoming a nightmare.” 

“Is it dangerous?” Pyrrha asks. 

“It’s Ironwood, so probably,” Ruby chimes in. “I don’t know why he’s always trying to slip things by us.” 

“Arrogance,” Weiss says, sneering delicately. “He likes to think he’s the most powerful man out there. Which is possibly true,” she adds as an afterthought, “as we aren’t _men._ ” 

Yang smirks at her. “I’ll cheers to that,” she says, and Weiss offers her an evil sort of grin, allowing it. She and Weiss tend to be the most hot-headed, meaning they often agree the most but clash the most, too; Yang’s historically more relaxed, rolls with the punches and throws them when necessary, but Weiss is nothing if not born from pride, and her instinct is to defend it. 

“Anyway,” Weiss continues, “Winter’s been updating me on the project - Ironwood doesn’t quite trust her enough yet for full clearance, so we’re working on something together. From what we know, they’re experimenting on aura.” 

“Hm,” Pyrrha says, eyes narrowing. “I have to admit, I don’t like the sound of that.” 

“Neither do I,” Weiss agrees. “I suppose I could always lock him in his house again, though I’m feeling as if more drastic action needs to be taken.” 

“We were just talking about that!” Ruby says, laughing. “Yang and I met up the other night - oh, oh my God,” she interrupts herself, leaning forward. “Yang met a _girl!_ ” 

They all turn to look at her, staring with various expressions of surprise, save for Ruby’s gleeful one; fortunately they’re saved by the waiter, who approaches politely with a pen tucked behind his ear. “Ready to order?” he asks, pulling out his pad. He blinks a little hazily as he looks at them, like he can’t quite see that they’re there. 

“Yes,” Yang says instantly. “I’ll have the, uh,” --she picks the first thing she sees on the menu-- “Banana Rum Waffles. Side of sausages. Thanks so much.” 

“Breakfast tacos,” Ruby says. 

“Salmon and bagel board.”

“I’ll do the eggs benedict,” Pyrrha finishes, smiling nicely and handing the man her menu. He writes it all down, turns and walks away without another word. All eyes dart back to Yang, very intensely now staring at her glass.

“ _You_ met a _girl?_ ” Weiss asks, a cross between disbelieving and accusing. 

“Maybe,” Yang says defensively.

“What’s she like?” Pyrrha asks. “Is she your - you know - is it _her?_ ” 

“She’s beautiful,” Yang says, “and smart, and sarcastic, and she treats me like a regular person. I got her number, so I’m asking her out later.” 

“And the other question?” Weiss asks, gaze probing. “ _Is_ it her?” 

“I don’t know,” Yang says, deliberately avoiding her stare. “I mean, how _would_ I know?”

They deflate slightly at the answer, Weiss and Pyrrha exchanging a look they think Yang doesn’t see. Ruby only swirls the liquid in her glass, not saying anything, expression blank. 

Weiss murmurs, “You’d know,” and the pity can’t keep itself from her tone. “You’d know.”

\--

Blake gets home, steps right into the shower before Sun has a chance to pester her about what’d happened. She can hear him calling excitedly for Neptune, _dying_ to finally recount the event; she turns on the water, shuts the door, and cuts his voice off. She runs her hands through her hair, wipes off her face, and she can only think of Yang’s smile, her fingertips sweeping across Blake’s forehead, how her touch hurt like a bruise, painful to press down on but in a good way, relief rushing after blood. She’s never felt anything like it. She’s never felt anything even remotely close, including when she thought she was in love, if that’s what she’d ever actually been. 

She drops her head under the water, letting it run down her neck, her back, her legs. Sun’s right; she’s _not_ going to reject Yang, not sure she even could, knows she doesn’t want to. But she’s not sure when the shift occurred, like she’s been talking to herself in her sleep and can’t quite remember the conversation. 

Twenty minutes later, she walks out of her room, determined, resigned, _compelled._ Whatever it is between them, she thinks, is a different kind of magic. 

“Okay,” she says, approaching Sun now lounging on the couch, chewing on a piece of bacon. “Tell me everything you know about the Maidens.” 

He sits up with a speed that vaguely concerns her, tail waving eagerly behind him. “Really?” 

“Yeah.” She might as well know what she’s getting herself into. “Everything.”

\--

As it turns out, Sun doesn’t know _much,_ and neither does Neptune when he finally joins in.

Not for lack of trying, though; information regarding anything beyond surface-level knowledge isn’t exactly publicly available. For obvious reasons, Sun says, rolling his eyes. Like, why would they ever reveal that kind of shit? Even people who’ve set out to study them can’t get close enough.

It’s a good point, one she hadn’t thought about; if they’re as powerful as they say they are, there must be people who oppose them, who’d die to know how to control their gifts. The most interesting thing, Neptune says, is that they’re apparently an odd mix of public figure and myth: “Weiss and Pyrrha are essentially celebrities - Pyrrha was on a cereal box at one point, and Weiss’s family was _already_ famous when they had her,” he explains. “Schnee. Even _you’ve_ heard of that name.” 

She has; the Schnee name had arisen frequently in Menagerie, due to their treatment of Faunus employees and questionable business practices. “Yeah,” she answers, frowning. “The first day I met Yang, she said something about having been to see Weiss.” 

“God, that’s _so_ cool,” Sun says, starry-eyed again. “You’re getting, like, an inside-look at the most exclusive, secretive people in _history._ ” 

“So Weiss has been in the spotlight since she was born, basically,” Neptune continues, interrupting. “And Ruby - well, thinking of when we lived in Haven, how would we describe her?” 

“Kinda like a figurehead,” Sun provides, resting back against the cushions with one foot kicked up on the coffee table. “Like, people look up to her, but she’s more socially awkward than the other three.” 

“Yeah,” Neptune agrees. “She’s more seen as inspiration in times of desperation. She’s a great leader.” 

“And Yang?” Blake asks.

“That’s the _thing,_ ” Sun emphasizes, tapping his fingers against his knee, gazing off into the distance. “Yang’s like...she’s the most _distant,_ I guess. Like, she’s not unapproachable or anything, and people here love her, but she’s just so removed from it all, you know?” He glances to Neptune for help.

“Yeah,” Neptune says, rubbing his fingers against his jaw. “It’s weird. She’s the most charismatic, but the most disconnected. She has _fans_ more than she has followers - she’s different from Ruby that way. People are really _into_ her. Probably because she’s so mysterious, unobtainable, and unpredictable.” 

“And she likes _you,_ ” Sun adds to Blake, placing a weight atop the sentiment that makes her shiver. “Out of everyone in the world, she likes _you_.” 

“This is unheard of for her, Blake,” Neptune says gently, watching her expression slip into a blankness he’s familiar with, a way of masking how she truly feels. “I’d think about that before getting involved with her, if you aren’t sure it’s something you actually want.” 

That’s the thing, Blake thinks later, staring aimlessly out her window, arms resting on her knees. Somehow, wanting Yang is the only thing she _is_ sure of.

She picks up her scroll, finding Yang’s contact details; she opens a text, and before she can stop herself, sends Yang the picture of her and Sun from that morning. 

_You’re right,_ she types, _you do look good._

\--

“What d’you feel like doing this time?” Ruby asks her, cocking her head. The two of them are standing on the outskirts of a destroyed, ruined wasteland, steel beams and stone rising behind them like the degrading corpses of a city that once flourished. A large pack of Grimm wander in front of them, oblivious. “Are we going physical, or magical?” 

“Let’s do physical,” Yang says, rolling her shoulders. “I haven’t had a good workout in awhile.” 

“Okay,” Ruby agrees, cracking her knuckles. “I’m gonna go with a scythe.” 

“Weiss isn’t here to show off for, you know,” Yang teases her, and Ruby flushes. “I mean, I can give her a call--”

“Shut up,” Ruby huffs. “I’m just having fun.”

“Uh-huh.” Yang lets it go, watches Ruby extend an arm, red crystals conjuring and combining into a weapon with a long, curved blade protruding from the end. It’s not an uncommon choice for her, but it’s one of the first weapons Qrow had ever taught her to summon and use despite its difficulty, and she holds a sentimental attachment to it. “So we’ll clear this out, and figure out the source after. Shouldn’t be difficult. I think they’re in the caves.” 

“Sounds good.” Ruby digs the end of her scythe into the dirt. “What are you gonna do?” 

Yang smiles darkly, raising her hands in the air and curling them into fists, a flash of gold blinding Ruby’s sight for a moment; a yellow alloy wraps itself around her wrists, her forearms, winding around her knuckles. 

“Gauntlets,” she says. 

Ruby holds a hand up to her chest, fluttering her eyelashes, mouth in an ‘o’ shape. “How barbaric,” she says, mimicking Weiss’s voice, and Yang laughs. 

“I’m telling her you did that.” 

“Please don’t,” Ruby says, snickering. “She’ll kick my ass.” 

“Yeah, _right,_ ” Yang says, rolling her eyes. “Let’s get on with it.” 

There’s a subtle shift in the air, and a Beowolf’s head lifts, ears perking up, nose sniffing; it turns towards them, the rest of the pack following. 

“Here, boy,” Ruby whistles, like she’s calling a dog. “Come and get it.” 

Yang grins as they start to run; Ruby launches herself off the ground, but Yang only steps forward slowly, one foot after the other shoulders strong and spine straight. Her arm rears back, her fist connecting with the creature’s skull in a sickening crunch, cracking it cleanly in half; smoke feathers off, the body dissipating. 

“Oh, yeah,” she breathes out, irises a brilliant red. “I really needed this.”

Another leaps at her from the right, and she raises her hand, waiting for the contact; she feels the force of bone against her palm and tightens her fingers, one thumb digging into the eye, the creature howling. A tar-like substance trickles down her wrist, and she only smiles, grabbing the scruff of its neck with her other; she pulls the two apart in a smooth motion, its head tearing like paper from the rest of its body and disappearing in an instant. 

“Brutal,” Ruby calls, sticking out her tongue disgustedly, slicing one in half with efficiency rather than emotion. 

Her scroll suddenly vibrates in her pocket; she blinks briefly, reaching for it as two more jump from a distance at her head. She shoots them a glare, like they’re suddenly inconveniencing her, and holds up a hand, fingers spread; they promptly collide into an invisible wall, falling to their feet unsteadily.

“Blake texted me,” she says, so surprised that she forgets herself, her veins warm underneath her skin. 

“Yang--” Ruby starts, and Yang reacts just in time, slamming her fingernails into the chest of a Beowulf, digging in, in, in, reaching for a mass of dark energy, substance like melted rubber, congealed blood. Her scroll is held loosely in her other hand, her stance casual. 

“Now, please,” Yang murmurs softly, her eyes glowing brighter than the Grimm’s, its tongue lolling, panting. “I have a very important message to answer.” 

And she rips its heart out.

\--

 _are u hitting on me?_ is the reply Blake gets, her scroll lighting up. She smiles, opening the text instantly.

_Definitely not._

Blake watches her type back, strange lulls and pauses in between like she’s not sure what to say. _uh huh. just randomly lettin me know how good i look?_

_I’m trying to boost your self-esteem. You’re clearly lacking in confidence, if the past few days have been any indication._

_thank u its true. i am not admired nearly enough_

Blake doesn’t really consider herself the coquettish type, but-- _Guess you’re gonna have to find someone to help you with that._

Yang’s even quicker, like it’s her natural instinct to lean flirtatious. _fortunately i have just the candidate in mind_

 _You’re pretty smooth for someone who doesn’t get a lot of practice,_ Blake answers, as if she’s not sitting there, blushing. She draws closer to herself, resting her chin on her knees, staring at her screen, waiting. 

_only with u_

_also i gotta go take care of some shit but can i see u tomorrow? we can finish our conversation_

_Okay,_ Blake types, already way in over her head. _Where should I meet you?_

 _oh im sure u will find me,_ Yang replies vaguely. _goodnight gorgeous_

Blake tosses her scroll behind her on the bed, buries her face in her arms, stomach tying itself into a knot. The statement should concern her more, should confuse her, deter her; instead, she remembers Yang’s laughter in the trees, the way they seem to cross paths without premeditation, like they’re drawn to the same places at the same times, and she thinks--

Yeah. She’ll find her.

\--

It’s really a _hunch_ Yang has. 

Well, maybe it’s a little more than that; a hypothesis, accidentally tested and proven, three for three. She rests by the riverbank, lying on her back in the grass, staring up at the sparse clouds crawling lazily by. The tips of her fingers tingle, her bones shivering underneath her skin, her heart impatient and anxious. She closes her eyes, breathes steadily, attempts to quiet her soul. Just give it a minute, she tells herself; give it a minute--

“Hey,” a voice says from above her, behind her, sounding oddly unfazed. 

Yang opens her eyes, blinking up at Blake’s face, leaning over her. Her mouth spreads into a grin. Four for four. “Hey,” she says, sitting up. “You found me.” 

“I did,” Blake confirms, taking a seat next to her, leaning back on her hands. “Though I’m not sure exactly _how._ ” 

“Fate,” Yang says ominously, but Blake doesn’t laugh like it’s a joke, and Yang didn’t mean it as one in the first place; she only smiles, legs stretched out, black heeled boots crossed at the ankles. Yang sneakily checks her out, her pulse already an earthquake in her veins, and fights to contain a sigh; Blake’s so beautiful that it’s almost a form of torture to have her close, especially looking like _this_ \- she’s wearing light denim shorts and a white shirt, loosely tucked in, an open floral short-sleeved top over, dusted with a pattern of roses on a black print. She’s wearing a few necklaces with symbols Yang can’t quite make out in the brief time she examines her, all gold, and a wide-brimmed black hat covers her ears. 

Kiss me, Yang wants to say, wants to beg, wants to cry. Please, just kiss me.

“Magic?” Blake guesses dryly. 

“Yeah,” Yang says, attempting to mirror her tone, mouth like a desert. “Magic.” 

“You know,” Blake starts, staring out at the methodical current of the river, “for someone who protects the entire kingdom, you sure spend a lot of your time _here_.” 

Yang looks over at her, mildly amused. “Well, I live here.” 

The idea that Yang _lives_ somewhere seems to strike her more than the idea of an otherworldly compass, and she meets Yang’s eyes, obviously taken aback at the revelation. “You do?” 

“Yeah,” Yang says, biting back a giggle at her amazement. “What, did you think I just, like, had a hovel in the forest or something? Like a witch, or--” 

Blake raises a hand and shoves her shoulder lightly. “ _No,_ ” she laughs openly. “I don’t know. Maybe a little bit.”

“I live near the Olivine Canal, on the east side,” she says. “So like, past Main and Oxley, across the bridge, and I’m in one of the houses on Carmine that overlooks the river.”

“How do you - how do you manage _that?_ ” Blake asks, surprised. “Don’t you get noticed all the time?” 

Yang winks at her. “I have my ways,” she says mysteriously. 

Blake lets it go, lips fading back into a smile. The wind picks up the barest amount, the water lapping gently at the riverbank. She says, “So, what were you up to last night?” 

“Working.” Yang digs the heels of her boots into the grass, her palms on her knees, resting her cheek against the back of her hand. She stares at Blake, grinning, and tells her playfully, “You’re bad for my focus, you know.” 

“How?”

“I keep getting distracted in places I shouldn’t be distracted in.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Like the middle of fights,” Yang says. “I was in Mountain Glen with Ruby when you texted me - it’s this abandoned city outside of Vale, and there’s _always_ some kind of shady shit going on, so we have to clear it out often. Anyway,” she shakes herself off her tangent, “I was gonna try and get a workout in, fight physically, but I wanted to text you, so I resorted to magic half the time. Ruby kept making fun of me.” She grimaces. 

Blake mimics her position, rests her chin her hand, her smile half-hidden behind her fingers. “And when else?” 

“Hm?” 

“You said you _keep_ getting distracted,” Blake points out, “implying you’ve done it _more_ than once.”

“Oh.” Yang sort of regrets letting that slip, though it’s too late for excuses. She admits, “The reason I was up in that tree the other night was so I could think about you without being attacked,” and she can almost see Blake’s mind doubling into overdrive, trying to process all the bits and pieces of information. 

“ _Attacked?_ ” she repeats. 

“Yeah.” Yang only rolls her eyes, still berating herself for making such a stupid mistake. “Bandits caught me alone the night we met - I was like, just spacing out; I was _such_ an easy target. They’re lucky I didn’t kill them.” Her expression darkens slightly. “Though maybe I should’ve.” 

“Have you?” Blake asks candidly, curiously. “Killed anyone?” 

Yang raises her eyebrows at the intrigued tone, and hopes Blake can’t see the debate over whether or not to lie; she knows the question is answered before she even speaks. “Yeah,” she says truthfully. “But only people who don’t have the soul to return. There’s a point some get to where we deem it the best course of action.” 

Everything she’s saying must be nonsensical to Blake, even if it’s fascinating; the desire for more is leaping from her eyes, her mouth, and Yang starts to plan. “‘The soul to return’?” Blake quotes.

Yang observes her for a moment, doesn’t answer; her lips twist up into a smile a second later, tone impish. “Interested, huh?” she asks. “Despite yourself.” 

“Yeah.”

“I’ll make you a deal,” Yang says, leaning closer. Being in Blake’s space is enough for holding breath. “You go to dinner with me, and I’ll answer any question you want.”

“Really?” Blake asks, like she’s certain _something_ must be out-of-bounds. “ _Any_ question?” 

“Yep,” Yang agrees cheerfully. “No holds barred. Rapid fire. Essay questions. I’ll do it all.” 

“Okay,” Blake answers easily; almost _too_ easily, as if she’d never planned on saying no in the first place. “I’ll go to dinner with you.” 

Yang smiles genuinely, her face relaxing into something softer; without realizing it, she’d been preparing for rejection. “Seriously?” she says. 

“Seriously,” Blake confirms. “I’ll go out with you.” 

Yang laughs a little breathlessly. “Oh, great,” she says, grin blowing wide, and then pauses, flashing with a spark of hesitation. “Wait, as long as you didn’t agree because you’re like, afraid of me now or something. I swear I only kill people who are like, evil--”

Blake giggles and raises her thumb to Yang’s lips, brushing over them and down to her chin, which she captures between her fingers; Yang stops speaking, enthralled at her touch, her heartbeat in her tongue, the entire sun gazing out at her from Blake’s eyes. “I’m saying yes because you’re beautiful, and funny, and engaging,” Blake tells her with a shy smile, “and I can’t seem to stop thinking about you.” 

She drops her hand, releasing Yang’s jaw. Yang exhales, “Wow. Okay. Cool.” 

“Won’t people recognize you?” Blake asks, looking for a true answer this time. “Isn’t it going to be like I’m out with a celebrity?” 

Yang grins, still a little dazed. “No,” she says. “We can make ourselves...I don’t have the right word for it, but I guess _invisible_ , at an aura level. At most, people will think I look vaguely familiar, but they probably won’t be able to place me until much later. Like we’re disorienting to be around, when we want to be,” she says, the right turn of phrase finally coming to her. 

“Huh,” Blake says. “Even to me?” 

The phrasing catches Yang off-guard. “Why wouldn’t it?” 

Blake blinks, her cheeks going a slight pink like she hadn’t processed her own question. “I - I don’t know,” she says, stumbling over herself. “I just feel like - like I’d know you anywhere.”

\--

Blake’s not sure why she says it, and even less why it’s something she actually feels; Yang only looks at her with a carefully-disguised shrewdness, and Blake swears the current of the river accelerates, like the rhythm of a drum, a heartbeat.

“Maybe you would,” Yang says finally, gaze falling back to the water; it quiets, calms. Her lips are tilted, and she drops a hand to the grass, fingers curving; a second later and a stem creeps up from between her thumb and index, bud enlarging, pink petals billowing out. 

It’s a pink carnation; Yang plucks it from the ground, hands it to her abashedly. Blake takes it, lifts it to her nose, breathes. It’s more fragrant than she remembers, but she imagines anything Yang grows is probably the pinnacle of what it should be, the essence of the earth itself. It’s a way for Yang to communicate, she’s realizing; when perhaps she can’t say exactly what she’d like to.

“Is this because you’re Spring?” Blake asks. “The flowers?” 

“Huh? Oh.” Yang rubs the back of her neck, flustered. “No. We all have the same abilities, with a few minor changes due to personal preference,” she says. “It’s just something I enjoy. And the climate agrees with it.”

“It’s interesting,” Blake says. She can sense it in Yang, the chaos, the confusion, the untamed wilderness of strength. “You don’t seem...exactly the type.”

“No,” Yang answers quietly, agreeing with her. “But I feel like...like I’ve seen enough destruction. Sometimes it’s nice just to watch things grow.”

They sit in silence for a moment, letting the sentiment settle between them. Blake says, “Yeah,” and a vision of Adam scourges her mind, burning everything he touches. “I know what that’s like.” 

Yang doesn’t ask, doesn’t pry, and Blake appreciates her all the more for it. She says suddenly, “You don’t have to cover your ears if you don’t want to,” and her eyes flicker up to Blake’s hat. “I want you to feel like you can be yourself.” 

Blake blinks, lips parting unexpectedly. “How did you--?” 

Yang laughs. “Sweetheart,” she says breezily, “give me a little more credit.” 

Blake contemplates her, her mouth in a line. “It doesn’t...bother you?” she asks. She’s used to the openness of Menagerie, but the kingdoms have always been in conflict; she’s not sure she wants to test it out on a first date.

“Bother me?” Yang echoes, uncomprehending, and then--“Oh,” she says, darkening. “No, Blake. It doesn’t bother me. And it sure as hell won’t bother anyone else if I’m with you.” She smiles again, but the undercurrent of her mouth is dangerous, threatening; Blake swears she sees her eyes flash red, but she blinks and it’s gone. “Trust me.” 

Yang’s somehow _more_ attractive when she’s simmering sinisterly inside of herself, the truth of her power waiting to be unleashed, and, well, now Blake’s probably in love with her or something. 

“You _say_ that like it’s nothing,” Blake says, grimacing, “but not everybody agrees with you.” 

Yang hums pensively, tongue poking against the inside of her cheek; she says, “Well, if you’re nervous, why don’t you try it now?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Like, take off your hat, and we can just relax for awhile,” Yang says. “Right here by the river. It’s not crowded, but people still take the bike trail. You can see if you feel comfortable enough for it later.”

It’s a sweet offer, thoughtful without being forceful or rude; it’s her way of saying _trust me, but be at peace._ Blake observes the landscape around them, and Yang’s right - it’s not that busy of a trail, but not out of sight, either. They’re low enough on the riverbank that they wouldn’t be approached naturally, but definitely seen. Yang is crafting a crown of daisies idly, their stems splitting and linking together, like it’s a passive habit.

“Okay,” Blake says, and grabs the brim of her hat, slipping it off her head. Her ears automatically flinch in the wind and then adjust, easing. Yang glances up, smiles, and lifts the braid of daisies, gently setting the crown atop her head. The action doesn’t cause her to ignite, but smolder, waiting for a spark, a flint, a flare.

“Is Tuesday okay with you?” Yang asks. “I don’t really get weekends, and I think I’m gonna be busy. Ruby’s dealing with a lot of turmoil in Haven, and some shit is _always_ happening with Weiss’s father. He’s like, such an asshole.”

Blake smiles, stretches back out against the grass, wonders if Yang talks to anyone else with this same sort of simplicity. “Yeah,” she says. “Tuesday’s fine.” 

Yang stays upright, turns to face her, cross-legged; she props her elbow against the inside of her knee, her jaw resting against her knuckles. The wind ghosts across her cheek, her lips, a deliberate caress. 

“Don’t worry,” Yang says softly. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” 

It sounds deeper than it should, breathes like a promise rather than an afternoon; your heart, Blake wants to say, I can keep that safe in return. She lets the sky lull her into tranquility, the lilac of Yang’s eyes washing over her in waves, cool earth below her an embrace instead of a grave. 

Give me your heart, she wants to say, but somehow she feels as if she already has it.

\--

Yang texts her intermittently throughout the weekend, random spurts and odd hours of the day, sometimes to the point that Blake wonders if she somehow needs less sleep than normal people; it’s a vague concern, but visible - if she’s facing as many threats as it seems like she is, she needs to be _awake_ for them, doesn’t she?

 _no lol,_ she answers. _i mean yea i need the same amount of sleep, sometimes i just get it at weird times_

_Well I don’t want to distract you_

_babe u do that literally just by existing_

Blake actually throws her scroll to the other end of the couch, blood scorching her skin like she’s been set aflame; the suddenness of the action actually causes Sun to jump, panicked. “God,” he says, looking over at her in alarm. “What’s the matter with you?” 

“She’s just, like,” Blake manages, collecting herself, “so... _straightforward._ ”

Sun pauses for a moment, deciphering, and then--”Oh.” He starts to laugh. “Are you texting her?” 

“Yeah.”

“Lemme see.” He reaches for her scroll with his tail; she nods, allowing him on. He reads the message, laughter growing. “ _Damn,_ ” he says. “You’re not kidding. She, like, totally doesn’t care.”

“It’s been like _five days,_ ” Blake says. 

“So why are you going along with it?” he asks, tossing the device back to her. “If it’s freaking you out, just tell her.”

“That’s the _thing,_ ” Blake says, on the verge of frustration. “It _isn’t._ At all. It’s like - like I’ve known her forever. That’s what freaks me out.” 

Sun shrugs, focusing back on the television; some martial arts match is on she’s not really paying attention to. “Maybe you have,” he says, only half-teasing. “Maybe you’re like, soulmates or whatever.” 

“That’s ridiculous.”

“That’s what you said about magic,” he sing-songs.

“Oh, come on,” she dismisses. “ _Something’s_ gotta give.”

\--

It’s always colder in Atlas, but that night is particularly frostbitten, the windchill bitter and burning. Yang only sighs, flares up the air around her, steam evaporating from her skin. It isn’t _all_ Weiss’s doing - they don’t _actually_ control the weather, only intervening when absolutely necessary - but it’s definitely influenced by her, a shiver, a whimper. 

She unlocks Weiss’s door and steps inside, takes her shoes off and sets them by the front mat. Her house is small - _I’ve always hated that fucking estate_ , Yang remembers her saying upon moving out - but in a quaint way, tastefully decorated and somehow warm despite her connotation. Yang shakes her hair out of her coat, checks her scroll, types out a quick message to Blake as she pads down the hall, littered with pictures of her and her sister and Ruby, and even a few of Yang and Pyrrha. She’s more sentimental than she lets on.

“Hey,” Yang says, when she finds Weiss sitting at her kitchen table on her scroll, the screen blown up in front of her, half-filled wine glass to her left. Weiss glances over, corner of her mouth twitching. Yang holds up her hands, already sensing the question. “Ruby’s busy, so you’re stuck with me again. Sorry, princess.” 

Weiss rolls her eyes, but gestures for Yang to take a seat. “It’s fine,” she says reluctantly. “Winter prefers you to Ruby, anyway, so I suppose it’s for the best.” 

“That’s flattering, but she’s not my type.” 

“Ugh.” Weiss curls her lip disgustedly. “You _know_ that isn’t what I meant.” 

“Sure,” Yang says, leaning back in her chair, “but it was funny.” 

“She’ll be here in about ten,” Weiss says, closes her scroll, the screen fading away. She finally stares over at Yang directly, studying her. “How are you?”

“Fine.” Yang shrugs; her life sometimes seems tame compared to Ruby’s and Weiss’s. Pyrrha’s more along her lines; Vacuo’s pretty relaxed these days. “I can’t complain. I’m going on a date tomorrow.” 

Weiss falters the barest amount as she stands up, alerting Yang to her uneasiness; Weiss has never been one to hold a poker face. “With Blake?” she asks, trying to sound casual. “Also, would you like a drink?” 

“Yes and yes,” Yang says as she opens the refrigerator. “Scotch, on the rocks.” 

Weiss tosses her a beer. “Hopefully this will do, considering you’re the only reason it’s in my house at all,” she says. “Though if you’re serious about a nicer alcohol, I do have a good bottle of wine open--”

Yang grins; she’s almost too predictable. “No, thanks.” 

Weiss sits back down, draws her own glass towards her, arms crossed against the tabletop. She’s giving Yang a _look_ , scrutinizing, examining, probing. Finally, Yang says impatiently, “Spit it out.”

Given permission, she’s still more hesitant than Yang’s used to. She says carefully, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“With Blake.” Weiss allows a moment for comprehension. “Are you - is this really something you’re ready to handle?” 

“She’s a girl, Weiss, not a monster.” Yang can’t exactly see where she’s coming from, like going on a single date is somehow going to send Yang spiraling over the edge, descending into chaos. “Last time I checked, _you_ were dating a girl, too.”

“That’s different.”

“How?” 

Weiss bites the inside of her lip briefly. “You can’t tell her anything, Yang,” she says quietly, actually regretful. “I’m not trying to be a bitch. I’m just...worried about you.”

Oh. _Oh._ “Why?” she asks, playing avoidance. 

“Because it seems like you like her,” Weiss says delicately. “Perhaps more than you should, considering she isn’t...” 

Yang shifts uncomfortably, planting her feet against the floor. “I’m fine.” 

“Yang--”

“I _said,_ I’m _fine,_ ” Yang snaps, turning on her, irises searing red. “I _know_ I’m not allowed to tell her anything. Mind your own fucking business for once, Weiss.” 

Yang can see her fighting the instinct to snap back, holding her tongue, biting down on words between her teeth. Her jaw tightens, lips tilting down; her eyes flash in anger. They both wait in heavy silence, unrelenting, furious, wanting the other to back down first. Yang hopes it doesn’t come to blows, but, well, that’s the only stress relief they manage, sometimes--

\--but Weiss softens, tension dropping from her shoulders, fingers relaxing from fists. She says, “You’re right,” and sighs, reaching for her glass.

Yang only blinks, red fading. “What?” 

“You’re right,” Weiss repeats. “It’s none of my business.” 

Yang’s quiet for a second; her scroll vibrates in her pocket. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs, meeting Weiss halfway. “I know you’re just...trying to look out for me. But I promise it’s okay. Okay?”

It’s clear Weiss doesn’t really believe her, and she doesn’t have a reason to; there’s a knowledge she possesses Yang doesn’t have, age-old and ancient, a soul complete. But she says, “Okay,” and smiles.

“Anyway,” Yang says, taking a long sip of her beer, “what are we expecting from Winter?” 

“Just an update,” Weiss says. “We were right - they _are_ experimenting with aura, in a highly dangerous and frankly barbaric manner - and Winter finally accessed clearance for the details.” 

“They still think she’s loyal to them?” 

“They’d better, after all the public performances we put on to fuel that perception,” Weiss answers, irritated. “Ironwood’s inner circle does _nothing_ but test my patience. I need her to remain where she is so that I don’t have to get involved until they’re too deep in to hide it any longer.”

“Atlas is so... _dramatic,_ ” Yang says, pulling a face. “Ironwood, your father--”

“Please, do _not_ get me started.” Weiss raises a hand to her temple. “ _His_ company is an entirely different nightmare. I’ve thought about killing him more than once.” 

“I’d support you.” 

“You’d be the only one,” Weiss says, her head falling back. “Whatever. He’s under control for the time being. It’s Ironwood’s little science project I’m worried about.”

“Are the implications of his research _that_ bad?” Yang asks, toying with the tab idly. 

“Worse, I believe.” She taps her fingers against the wood. “Perhaps I’ll kill someone on his team to make a point,” she says thoughtfully. “It’ll set an example.” 

Yang laughs, shaking her head. “Wishful thinking,” she says. “Unless you can ‘make a point’ of some soulless asshole.”

“Oh, it’s the _military,_ ” Weiss says, waving a hand dismissively. “They’re _hardly_ clean. In a time of peace, the only reason for joining is power over people. It’s not like _they_ help fight the Grimm.”

“What a lovely way to greet your sister, Weiss,” a cool voice drawls from the doorway, and whatever lingers from the previous conversation is gone.

\--

The tap at her window comes not as a surprise, but an expectation. There’s no reason behind it, no preemptive knowledge other than a _feeling;_ she’d been off for a few hours, anxious and on-edge, her heart flinging itself against her chest hard enough to bruise. Like it’s telling her there’s somewhere else it needs to be. 

She pulls back her curtains, and Yang is standing outside the glass, expression sheepish. She lifts the window, leans out, her pulse already calming. 

“Hey,” she says, instantly at ease. “What are you doing here? Are you okay?” 

“Hey,” Yang says softly. She glances to the ground and up, like she’s afraid of meeting Blake’s eyes for too long, afraid of what Blake might find in them. “Sorry. I know we’re not - going out until tomorrow, but I just - I’ve had a really long day.”

 _I’ve had a really long day,_ she says. _I’m so exhausted and you’re so beautiful. I look at you and I want to live forever._ She knows the words sit underneath her tongue, lonely, lovely, buried. 

Blake says, “It’s okay,” and reaches out, lightly brushes Yang’s bangs away from her forehead, and dips slightly down, over her cheekbone. Yang sinks into the touch; she lifts her arm, gently takes Blake’s hand in hers and presses it against her cheek, comforting. Her skin is warm beneath Blake’s palm, blood pooling in a blush. “Do you want to come in?” 

“No,” she says, sounding like she wants to say the opposite, reluctant and regretful. “I mean, I do, but I - I’m tired. And I’m afraid I’d do something stupid.” 

“Like what?” 

She _almost_ smiles, manages half an eyeroll; her fingers link between Blake’s, both their hands falling to the windowsill. “Blake,” she says quietly, “I think you know.” 

Blake does, doesn’t need it said out loud. Her gaze falls to Yang’s mouth and back. “Yeah.” 

“I’m okay,” Yang says, lips tilting up at the corners. “I just wanted to see you for a moment. I should go.” 

“If you’re sure,” Blake says, observing her plainly. She isn’t getting the sense that anything is _really_ wrong; Yang’s tired but at peace, content for now. The air is cool and night settles comfortably outside, everything as it should be.

“Yeah.” Yang steps back, away from the window. “Thanks.” 

“I wanted to see you too,” Blake says before Yang can turn to leave. She utters it like a confession, something she should’ve kept hidden and couldn’t. 

Yang raises her eyebrows, studies her; finally, she asks, “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Blake says, awkward and nervous at the admission. “I’ve just been feeling - anxious. But I knew I’d feel better if I saw you, somehow.”

Yang smiles, but it’s gentler, sweeter, on the edge of breaking. “Do you feel better?” 

Blake thinks of reaching out again, thinks of dragging Yang back to her and falling against her mouth, thinks of her lips whispering the world into her heart. Her blood is quiet and her bones are content where they are. “Yeah,” Blake says softly. “I feel better.” 

“Good.” Yang offers her a cute, clumsy sort of wave. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

_I love you,_ Blake imagines writing to the sky, wondering if she’d see it, if she’d know. _I love you like it’s always been there._ Maybe it has.

\--

In the morning, she assumes she must have been _overwhelmingly tired_ to think such things, or drugged, or maybe she’d dreamt the entire encounter, anyway. She lies in bed, fingers curling around her pillow, staring at the ceiling. Love is a word that shouldn’t even have been forming in her mind, and there it’d been, waiting, unearthed. She shakes herself out of it, chalks it up to temporary insanity, and gets on with her day.

She and Neptune run errands while Sun teaches at the studio, and their morning is mostly uneventful; he tells her about the plot of the book he’s writing, his plans for a series, and she listens intently, captivated; it’s not totally up her alley - she’d rather read about, you know, girls rather than boys - but it’s interesting nonetheless. Internally, she hopes Neptune can actually _write._

“Here,” he says, guiding her around the back of the bookstore with the _help wanted_ sign and into a park, “this is a shortcut to the market district - we can avoid the lights over on Viridian.” 

She makes it three paces down the dirt path when Neptune says, “Uh...” 

She stops, turns around to find him stalled, staring; she glances down, knowing what she’ll find before she sees it for herself--

It’s the similar combination she’s used to seeing, petals of purple and pink and yellow sprouting up around her shoes, growing from her previous steps. She sighs. “It’s just Yang,” she tells him, though she’s internally more perplexed than the sight has made her previously.

Neptune glances around hesitantly. “Is she...here?” 

“No,” Blake says, confident in the answer; it’s what’s fueling her confusion. She _knows_ Yang isn’t near, can’t sense her at all, can’t feel her. “She’s not.”

“So why’s it happening?” he asks curiously, bending down to watch them grow. 

“I don’t know,” she says, and continues walking. “But maybe we’d better stick to the roads on our way back.” 

He laughs, following her. “Fair enough. Don’t wanna go arousing suspicion, now, do we?” He raises his hands, framing a headline. “‘Girlfriend of the Spring Maiden, Found at Last.’ You’ll be famous.”

“I’m not her girlfriend,” Blake points out. 

“ _Yet._ ” 

She bites down on her tongue, knowing any denial is definitely a lie; she isn’t one to jump to action, dive headfirst into spontaneity, but with Yang, it’s like it’s an inevitability rather than a choice. She’s struggling more with the existence of that fact rather than the fact itself, with predetermination, fate. It all seems so far-fetched, and yet--

“Do you believe in fate?” she asks him candidly. 

“Yeah,” Neptune says, unfazed. “Remember those few semesters I was a philosophy major? I think _destiny_ made up, like, sixty percent of all discussions. And I mean, I don’t believe in it for _everything_ \- as in, I don’t think every single thing we do is determined by fate somehow - but I like to think it exists.”

“Hm.” Blake considers the response. “How so?”

“Like, for people,” he continues. “I think it’d be nice if there were people we always found our way back to.” He gazes aimlessly out at the path in front of them, the bridge over the canal, the rushing water, the array of homes and shops and cafes littering the other side. She wonders if he’s thinking about Sun, wonders if what they have feels anything like what she does. “It’s comforting, I guess.”

“No, I know what you mean,” she says. 

“What about you?” 

She glances back to the flowers trailing her steps, following like her own shadow, and says, “I didn’t used to.” 

Their feet hit the stone of the bridge and nothing grows. Neptune runs his fingers along the short wall idly, also lost in thought; people pass by in front of them, unconcerned, carefree, simple. He hums in his throat, and finally says, “Some things are just a little beyond explanation, aren’t they?” 

“Yeah,” she says, more to herself than him. “I guess they are.”

\--

Yang actually comes to pick her up at seven, knocking on the front door; she’s hurriedly searching for her wallet and calls, “Be right there,” hoping Neptune and Sun can play it cool for twenty seconds. She hears the door open, and then silence.

“Oh, _wow,_ ” comes Neptune’s voice. “Yeah, she’s doomed.” 

“ _Wow_ is right,” Sun says in response. “Damn, Yang.”

Yang’s laugh echoes out. “I’m _barely_ dressed up,” Blake hears, just as she steps out of her room, running a hand through her hair.

She can only see the boys’ backs, blocking the doorway. Neptune cocks his head and says, “You don’t have to be. It’s just, like, a _vibe._ ”

“Trust him,” Sun says. “He worked in fashion for awhile.”

“That’s enough,” she says, moving between them, and her stare finally locks on Yang--

She falls silent, the world somehow narrowing in an instant, any reprimands dying on her tongue; it’s not like her mind goes blank, but as if it fills too quickly, expanding at the edges, everything that isn’t Yang becoming blurry and hazy and unimportant.

She looks good; she looks _so_ good that Blake vaguely imagines dragging her inside, into her room, into her bed. She’s wearing tight black jeans and sneakers, a black shirt, and a varsity jacket with white stripes and buttons. Casual, she’d told Blake, who’s dressed in a white button-up with an olive green sweater over it, patterned with the imprint of a skull, ripped denim jeans disappearing into her heeled black boots. 

“Oh, yeah,” Neptune says, smirking as Sun glances between the two of them. “You couldn’t be more Blake’s type if she’d dreamt you up herself.” 

“Okay, shut up,” Blake breathes out, pushing by them towards Yang. “We’re leaving.” 

Yang seems dazed as Blake takes her by the arm, leading her away; she manages a wave thrown back, and then she says, “Hello to you too.” 

Blake furtively glances over her shoulder, making sure the door’s closed and they aren’t staring out the windows; she doesn’t see the signs, and so she stops at the street, relaxing slightly. She turns to Yang, smiling. 

“Hello,” she says. 

“Hi,” Yang says, enthralled. Blake’s hand slips from her elbow and down, brushing by her fingers before falling. “You look - you look--”

“You can do this,” Blake says seriously. “It’s just a compliment.” 

Yang laughs once, eyes dropping to the rest of her body; her mouth fades into something more dangerous, held back and covered. “I can,” she murmurs, “but I probably shouldn’t.” 

Blake shivers automatically, sensing the same desire she’d felt, the same longing and want, uninhibited. “Yeah,” she says, masking the burn in her throat. “So, um - we’d probably go.”

Yang only hums, refusing to say exactly what they’re both thinking; _go before I drag you back inside, go before you take me home._ Blake coughs, trying to ignore the warmth in her fingers, her pulse in her wrist. She takes one last look back at the house, and the yard, her footprints--

“Is this _really_ necessary, by the way?” she asks suddenly, gesturing to her feet, the path she’s followed littered with tiny flowers. “It’s been happening _all_ day. The moment I step in grass, or dirt, or whatever--”

“Wait,” Yang interrupts, blinking perplexedly at her. “What do you mean, ‘all day’?” 

Blake mirrors her expression, equally confused. “I mean all day,” she repeats. “I thought you were fucking with me.” 

Yang stares, gaze darting around behind her, the small violets, daisies, dandelions. “Oh my God,” Yang says, and raises her hands to her face, covering her eyes, her cheeks. She seems to be struggling to collect herself, embarrassed or ashamed; Blake can’t quite place the emotion. She mumbles something Blake doesn’t understand. 

“What?” Blake asks, still befuddled by the reaction.

“I said,” Yang admits, dropping her arms, and Blake’s surprised to find that she’s actually _blushing_ furiously, her eyes averted down, “that I’m not doing it on _purpose_.” 

“Wait,” Blake says comically. “ _What?_ ” 

Yang exhales loudly, turning slightly away from her, trying to hide her face. “I guess I’m just, like, thinking about you too much, or something. I don’t know,” she says, tone obviously mortified. “This has _never_ happened to me before.” 

“But the first few times--” Blake starts.

“That was supposed to be a joke!” she groans. “But - I don’t know!” She raises and drops her arms dramatically, turning back to face her. “I guess it stuck, somehow. I’ve been thinking about you all day. I didn’t know you’d actually be able to _tell._ Oh my God. I’m gonna die.” 

The concept of that in itself - that some aspect of Yang’s power is so tied to Blake that she enacts it passively just by the simple act of Blake crossing her mind - is so unbelievably sweet and endearing that for a moment the only appropriate reaction should be to kiss her; she pushes the urge away, reaches out for Yang’s hand instead, laughing at the outburst.

“I can tell you’re embarrassed enough,” she says nicely. “I’m not going to make fun of you.” 

Yang sighs again, her blush fading slightly, fingers curling back around Blake’s. “Is it at least, like, cute instead of weird?” she asks, eased. 

Blake smiles, unable to ignore her earnestness. 

“Yeah,” she allows softly. “It’s cute.”

\--

 _You don’t understand_ , Yang thinks of telling her, not letting go of her hand. _I swear I made this world for you._

\--

Yang takes her to a ramen house on Main Street; she’s passed it a few times, but never gone inside. It’s cool, casual, dim; the atmosphere is vibrant and buzzing, and there’s a full bar situated against the back wall, people gathered around, chatting and drinking. The lights above are a type of hanging lantern, their bulbs flickering like flames, tables made of dark polished wood. Yang steps up to the hostess, who blinks oddly at her, smile faltering just slightly. 

“Name?” she asks, tone strangely vacant. 

“Blake,” Yang says smoothly, hands in her pockets. “Belladonna.” 

The hostess looks down at the screen, still blinking like she’s trying to wake herself from a dream. “Oh, yes,” she says. “For two?” 

“Yep.” 

“Right this way,” she says, her smile set in place, glued and frozen. It’s a little unnerving - or it would be, if Yang hadn’t prepared her for it beforehand - to see people glance at them and then immediately away, faces going slack, blank for the briefest of moments. Disoriented, disarmed. 

The hostess seats them upstairs by a window, walks away, and almost trips on a step, shaking her head. She doesn’t look back. 

It’s much the same with their waiter, who strolls over to their table with a wide grin that doesn’t fade, but alters, like he isn’t quite sure what he’s staring at, who he’s talking to. 

“Can I start you off with some drinks?” he asks as if reading from a script.

“Something fruity with tequila,” Yang requests charmingly. “Surprise me.” He nods, looks over at Blake, who says, “Margarita is fine, thanks.” He doesn’t card them, which Blake had slightly expected.

He heads off to the bar, and he has much of the same pattern as their hostess; he pauses, cracks his neck, continues on like nothing has happened. It’s a little creepy, Yang had said, but at least it allows us to live our lives normally.

“Well, that’s one question answered,” Blake says. Yang raises an eyebrow, hums curiously. Blake continues, “You’re of legal drinking age.” 

“Oh.” Yang laughs, arms crossed against the table, one leg stretched out. “Yeah. I’m, uh, definitely legal.” 

“ _How_ legal, exactly?” Blake asks, leaning forward. “This is a make or break answer. If you’re like, a thousand years old or something, this goes from cute to creepy.” 

Yang rolls her eyes, but her grin sits, amused. “I’m twenty-three,” she says. “Do I pass?” 

“I’m _older_ than you?” Somehow the information shocks Blake _more._ Yang doesn’t seem twenty-three; she seems heavy, like years sit on her soul that shouldn’t. 

“How old are _you?_ ” Yang asks. “If you’re past twenty-seven, I’m leaving right now.” 

“I just turned twenty-four.” 

“Oh, that’s a relief,” she says, faking seriousness. “This could’ve turned out to be a _disaster._ ” She pauses, like she’s just comprehended Blake’s response. “Wait, did I miss it?” 

“No,” Blake says, finding her concern overwhelmingly adorable. “It was right before I got here. When’s yours?” 

“In the summer.” 

“We’ll have to celebrate,” she says without thinking, without remembering that her plan only lasts through spring. Like it’s become a given that she’ll be wherever Yang is.

Yang lifts her hand to her mouth, elbow resting on the table, covering her smile; she’s embarrassed by the comment, Blake realizes. “I’d like that,” Yang says, eyes averted down. “I don’t usually...celebrate my birthday.” 

Their waiter returns, their drinks set in front of them; _yours is blackberry and lime_ , he tells Yang, _but if you aren’t a fan we’ll come up with something else_ ; she takes a sip and waves him on, satisfied. He pulls out his notepad, takes their orders, and walks away again, not as unbalanced as the first time. 

“Thanks for starting me off easy,” Yang says, her eyes bright and teasing. “Go ahead and get to the deep shit, though. What do you wanna know?” 

“What do you all _do?_ ” is the first thing out of her mouth, curiosity overwhelming. She understands that they protect the kingdoms, but not to what extent, not _how._ “Like, I get that you keep us safe, but Weiss is basically a celebrity in Atlas, and Ruby’s like, a leader for the people - but what do you actually _do?_ ” 

Yang dips an eyebrow, deciphering her question. “Do you mean, like, day-to-day, or…?”

“Both, actually,” Blake says, somewhat surprised she doesn’t already know the answer to Yang’s daily life.

“So, I don’t know how much you know about the history of it,” Yang starts, twirling her straw in her glass, “and frankly, we can’t remember it, so we don’t really know, either. All we’re sure of is that the First War was made up of two sides - creation and destruction - and that somehow, we became the combination of both. Magic used to be much more common than it is now,” she adds. “Honestly, even the seasons as our names is sort of misleading - it’s just something that stuck over the years. We aren’t _really_ based off of seasons. People love their poetry.” 

“Sure.” 

“Anyway, it’s not as if ‘evil’”--she places air-quotes around the word--“is gone, or anything. Energy like that can’t disappear entirely. It’s trapped away. Kind of like in another world. But when we let corruption grow - think like, when you first met me in the forest - it becomes a portal for that evil to fight its way back. And that’s what we’re trying to do. Keep it on the other side, otherwise it could take over. And the moods and motivations of the people either help or hurt that ambition.” 

“Okay,” Blake says, enraptured. She feels like she should be writing this down for her own personal reference, but simultaneously, strangely, knows it’s something she isn’t going to forget, like the wick of a candle, relit. “That makes sense.” 

Yang nods. “Right. But, anyway, daily shit is boring for me. Until you got here, at least.” 

“I know I’m hot,” Blake teases her, “but please focus.” 

Yang flushes, but grins, takes another long sip. Her tongue darts out, licks salt off her bottom lip, and Blake struggles to keep her sigh in her throat. Yang says, “We all have a guard. So, if there’s something that needs my attention that I don’t sense first - say, there’s a huge infestation somewhere and it’s attracting bigger Grimm, causing panic - I’ll go take care of that. If there’s a problem in one of the cities, like what Ruby’s facing right now with Haven and the class uprising, I may or may not intervene depending on the politics of it, and the effect it’s having on the Grimm population. Like, if someone in power is literally just killing their citizens, we’ll step in. So, it’s magnitude-based.” 

Blake grimaces. “Ugh,” she says. “I hated working in politics.”

“So do I,” Yang agrees. “Ruby and Weiss have to deal with it way more than Pyrrha and I, though. What’d you do?” 

“I was a political advisor in Menagerie,” Blake says, “to an asshole. Who also happens to be my ex-boyfriend.” 

Both of Yang’s eyebrows shoot up, chin raising off of her palm. “Ex-boyfriend, huh?” 

“Yep,” Blake says, pained. “It’s - definitely a regret of mine.” 

Yang examines her for a second, tongue poking against the inside of her cheek thoughtfully. “Should I kill him?” she asks, and Blake chokes on her drink, not expecting it. She seems sincere, too, and for the barest fraction of time, Blake thinks of saying yes. 

“He’s not worth it,” she says, sighing. “Though if he ever sets foot in Vale, be my guest.” 

Yang’s eyes glitter red underneath the glow of the lights. “Name?” 

“Adam Taurus,” Blake tells her, leaning forward on her chair, drawn to the threat of her smile. 

Yang says cooly, “I’ll remember that.” 

The subtle transformation of sweet to menacing is enough; Blake murmurs, “God, please stop,” and Yang crooks an eyebrow again. “That’s so - _attractive_.” 

Yang breaks the moment, danger dying from her face, and the spell over Blake diminishes. She knows it’s not actually magic, knows herself well enough to understand exactly what about Yang is turning her on, has her on edge. Yang says pointedly, “ _Anyway,_ ” but is interrupted again by their server, setting their bowls in front of them and smiling, not speaking a word. 

“Thanks,” Blake says nicely, to no response. He turns and leaves as if in a trance.

“Anyway, that’s me,” Yang concludes. “Weiss mostly spends her time trying to control her dick of a father and Ironwood’s military programs. Ruby’s playing peacekeeper in Haven. And Pyrrha’s kind of along my lines - she has a boyfriend, so her time’s pretty occupied, and not much is happening in Vacuo these days, regardless.”

She picks up her chopsticks, stirring her chicken into the broth. Blake gives her a minute to eat between questions, as she’d already started while Yang was talking, absorbed. 

“Aren’t you ever worried about people targeting you for your power?” Blake asks, genuinely curious. The Maidens’ existence isn’t a secret, but they still seem to keep to themselves barring special occasions; Blake’s not sure if it’s for their own safety or because they enjoy their solitude.

Yang only grins, shrugs her shoulders. “Not _really_ ,” she says dismissively. “It doesn’t exactly do anyone any good to get rid of us. Not like they actually _can,_ anyway.”

“What,” Blake says, eyebrows raising high, “like you’re _immortal?_ ” 

“In a sense,” Yang says, considering her words. “Our powers are tied to our souls. It’s always been that way. When we die, we’re not gone for long; we’re just reincarnated.” 

“Reincarnated?” Blake repeats, intrigued; she’d noticed Yang’s use of ‘we’ but hadn’t taken it down that road. “So, you’re _you,_ but in a different body?” 

“Kind of,” Yang says, pursing her lips. “Yeah, actually, I guess. There are never any big changes to our personalities or anything.” 

“So do you _remember_ it?” Blake says. “Being other people?” 

Yang can’t seem to resist her earnestness; she crinkles her nose at Blake’s innocent, sincere lines of questioning, brushing her fingers lightly over Blake’s cheek with her free hand. “You’re cute,” she says, smiling. “And only one. We only retain bits and pieces of our most recent lives.”

“Huh,” Blake says, resting her chin in her palm, gazing at Yang in a form of awe. “That’s fascinating.” She pauses, a thought striking her. “But you, Weiss, and Pyrrha are all the same age, right?” she asks, and Yang’s expression darkens. “Ruby’s two years younger. But the three of you…”

“Astute,” Yang says, straightening her shoulders. “Yeah, there was...an incident, I guess. Makes sense they wouldn’t teach it in Menagerie.”

“What happened?” Blake asks, but she almost doesn’t want to know. She shivers automatically against the knowledge she doesn’t yet have. “If you don’t mind talking about it, that is,” she tacks on out of respect. 

Yang takes her hand across the table, links their fingers like it’s a source of strength for her; Blake’s noticed that Yang’s an interesting cross of overly casual and intermittently awkward in her tactileness, a combination stemming from a lack of intimacy but a familiarity with it, like she’s done this before, done this with Blake. She starts, “We were much older, weaker. We usually live a little longer than the average, anyway, if we’re left alone. A woman thought she’d found a way to channel our powers - some kind of dark magic from the First War, a remnant of it, an echo. These things went how they always go - she wound up with a group of followers, people who wanted to disrupt the balance, take power for themselves. Darkness will always have an audience,” Yang adds grimly. “And she _was_ able to strip us of our powers - as she killed us. She struck Pyrrha first, and then Weiss, and then myself.”

Blake breathes out, “And then?” and Yang actually laughs at her enthrallment, like she’s hanging on the edge of Yang’s every word, fingers dragging them out of her mouth. Blake flushes. “I know it was probably traumatic,” she defends, “but you’re here, in front of me, and apparently all Weiss does now is argue with her asshole of a father, and Pyrrha’s dating some boy, so I’m pretty sure it worked out alright in the end.” 

Yang gazes adoringly at her, lips curled into a smile. She runs her thumb over the back of Blake’s. “It did, though it was a little more gruesome than anyone expected,” Yang says, continuing. “The powers are _bound_ to us - so our bodies are built to adapt to them, our souls are already... _wired,_ I guess, to contain that kind of power. And this woman tried to take _all_ of it, from all of us.” Yang pauses, apparently trying to think of a less sickening way to phrase the conclusion. “Ruby’s the one who destroyed her, but she didn’t have to do much - the power was...eating her from the inside out. It didn’t belong there, and she couldn’t handle it. There was barely even a body left. Like it had turned her into acid, and fire, and poison. Ruby says she looked more like a Grimm than a person when she finally killed her. She says the woman didn’t have bones or skin, like she was made of ash and tar.”

Blake just sits, staring at her blankly, processing. Yang lifts her hand, fingers pressing underneath Blake’s chin and pushing her jaw back up, grinning. 

“That’s insane,” Blake whispers, eyes still wide. “Oh my _God._ ”

“Apparently I’m a good storyteller,” Yang says, entertained by her reaction. She raises her glass back to her lips. “Maybe that can be my night gig.” 

“So nobody else can actually _wield_ your powers, even if they were to obtain them somehow,” Blake concludes. “Is that right?” 

“Yep.” 

“And there’s _dark_ magic?” 

“Not as much now, aside from the actual Grimm,” Yang explains, largely unconcerned. “It’s all just bits and pieces leftover from the First War, so it takes longer to harvest. And any enemies we have - who can harness that kind of power - don’t come back the same way we do, because it dilutes your soul. Can’t reincarnate something that doesn’t exist anymore.” 

“But the four of you are still bound to this infinitely,” Blake says.

“We keep peace,” Yang says. “That’s our true purpose. We can’t leave humanity entirely to their own devices because they’ll do stupid shit and and blow themselves up or whatever, like Weiss’s dumbass father. That’s why the uprisings tend to take place when we’re in-between forms. And that’ll bring the Grimm, and things even worse than that, and we’ll have another war on our hands.”

“Well, thanks for your service,” Blake tells her seriously. “I don’t know where we’d be without you here, growing me flowers and taking me out to dinner.” 

Yang laughs, her shoe knocking against one of Blake’s. She snatches her hand back dramatically and says, “Okay, shut up.” 

Blake scoops noodles into her mouth unattractively, holding back a giggle, lips in a grin. Yang mirrors her, slurps one up jokingly. 

“Any other questions?” she asks, and finishes the last of her cocktail.

“Only one,” Blake says. “Why _didn’t_ you kill those men? The ones who attacked you.” 

Yang’s eyebrows raise, the question not at all what she’d been expecting; she sets her glass down, looks at Blake as if she’s impressed by her, intrigued. She finally says, “I’m not technically...allowed,” and pauses, thinking. “We can’t really...get involved in human affairs like that, unless the people involved are totally soulless. We aren’t vigilantes. We can’t entirely stop people from hurting each other, killing each other, whatever - but we can stop it on the _grander_ scale. Like I said before, it’s mostly a magnitude thing.”

“I get it,” Blake says, and adds coyly, “but if you ran into them again...?” 

Yang smirks, her eyes flashing red for the barest of moments; Blake shivers, not out of fear but of _want_. “Oh,” Yang says dangerously, “I’d kill them.” 

“I know this probably shouldn’t be so hot,” Blake breathes out, enticed, “but after working in politics, God, do I like to see people get what’s coming to them.” 

\--

They stay out for another hour after finishing dinner, opting to walk along the canals rather than endure any further interactions with regular patrons in the restaurant; though, she’d noted with satisfaction, nobody had looked twice at her ears all night.

Blake interlaces their fingers and Yang lifts her free hand to her mouth again, covering her smile, abashed and flustered. They talk and laugh and Blake tells her about her childhood, her life, her family. She finds it strange, the concept of having to _explain_ any of it at all to Yang, like she should already know, like she should’ve been there.

Well, I wish I could’ve been, Yang says, her eyes dropping to Blake’s mouth and away.

Blake pulls her to a halt, tugging on her arm to bring her closer. It’s killing her, feeling the warmth of her body and listening to her voice and touching her skin, and not having any of those things belong to her. Yang steps into her space, her expression open, unguarded, almost disbelieving. Blake brings her hands to Yang’s waist instead, drawing in; Yang’s palms cup her cheeks, and then--

“I want to,” she whispers, her forehead pressing against Blake’s. “I’d do almost anything.”

“So why don’t you?” Blake asks, enticed by Yang’s breath, hot against her lips. The distance is nothing, a tilt of the head, an arch of the neck--

“I think...you have a lot to process,” Yang says slowly, trending the fine line between rejection and delay. “And I think I should give you time to, before I…” 

She skims her bottom lip nervously with her teeth, unsure of how to continue, of how to end; _before I kiss you, before I touch you, before I love you._ She flutters her eyelashes as if she’s attempting to hold back the barest break of tears, and Blake understands; she’s afraid and it’s an emotion she’s unused to, like she’s in conflict with herself for even feeling it at all. She’s afraid Blake will walk away and see her for what she is and find herself repulsed, horrified. 

Blake slips her fingers between Yang’s. She pulls back and says, “Okay,” and Yang releases a breath. “I’ll take some time.” 

“I want you to be sure,” Yang murmurs. “I want you to _know._ ” 

But she says _know_ like there’s a story behind it, a secret Blake’s already in on and hasn’t put together. She says _know_ like she’s waiting for Blake to catch up, and the fear stems from wondering if she ever will. 

_Know what,_ Blake wants to ask, but she thinks maybe that’s not a question she’s ready to have answered just yet.

\--

Yang walks her home, watches her head inside, flowers following her to the porch. Blake doesn’t make a joke, doesn’t roll her eyes; she stands on the step and looks down at a single red rose, voluminous, vibrant in its color, overpowering in its scent. _Love me,_ it says. _Please, love me._ Blake reaches for it, picks it, lifts it to her nose; she smiles cutely at Yang one last time, and then she is gone. 

\--

Yang goes to Pyrrha because she can’t take another pitying look from Weiss, and Ruby isn’t exactly known for her advice or empathy. Not that she isn’t sincere; more like she never knows what to say about it. 

_hey can i come over_ , she texts, already on her way. Pyrrha’s dependable like that. 

_Yes of course!_

_ok be there in a sec_

It takes her more of a few minutes; she opens up a doorway in a nearby tree, and she steps through into the sun, blinking against the heat. Pyrrha’s already in the backyard, relaxing in a bikini on a lounge chair by her pool. She waves to Yang, lifting her sunglasses over her eyes. 

“Hello,” she greets. “Have a seat. I left you a beer.” 

“Thanks,” Yang says, taking off her jacket, bending down to unlace her sneakers.

“You’re the only reason I have it in the house.” 

She laughs, stretching back in the other chair. “God, Weiss said the same thing,” Yang tells her, sighing. “I _will_ drink other stuff, you know. Except wine.” 

“Sure,” Pyrrha says. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure?” 

“Well, it’s like ten in Vale, and my date just ended, so…” she cracks open the beer and raises it in a toast, grinning. “You’re my best option.”

Pyrrha smiles widely, her head rolling to face her. “How’d it go?” she asks. “I won’t tell Weiss that you came to me first, by the way.” 

The sun beats down on them, hot and strong despite it being four in the afternoon; there’s nothing like Vacuo’s deserts, drenched in constant sunlight. Yang grimaces, already feeling the sweat on her lower back; she _could_ expend the energy and cool herself down, but she’s had such a nice night of feeling normal that she doesn’t really want to end it. She sits up and says, “Hey, I’m taking my clothes off.” 

“I have a boyfriend, Yang.” 

“Yeah, and clearly he’s made you funnier,” Yang snarks back, and Pyrrha laughs. She slides her shirt over her head, her jeans following; the most she does is whip up a slight breeze, airing over her as she stretches back, clad only in her black underwear. “Oh, that’s _way_ better.” 

“Keep a bikini here,” Pyrrha says. “I’ve told you _multiple_ times.” 

Yang waves a hand lazily. “This is easier,” she says loftily.

“No lingerie,” Pyrrha observes. “So you weren’t planning on sex.” 

Yang fights against the blood in her cheeks, her neck, her chest. “ _No,_ ” she says. “I wasn’t. It was our first date.” 

“Jaune and I had sex on our first date,” Pyrrha points out. 

“You and Jaune have had about a thousand first dates, and I don’t even want to know the amount of times you’ve fucked over the years.” 

“ _Anyway,_ ” Pyrrha says, deliberately ignoring the jab, “you’re avoiding the question. How was it?” 

Yang opens her eyelids, settling on the bright blue hue of the sky rather than the glare of the sun itself; her scroll vibrates by her thigh, and she reaches over, grabs it. Blake’s name pops across her screen with a message that reads--

_We should do this again sometime. I’m not going to change my mind._

Yang grins widely, lifts her other arm, dropping it over her eyes. She doesn’t hide the turn of her lips; Pyrrha waits expectantly. 

“Incredible,” Yang says, her mouth as dry as the air they’re under. “Probably the best night of my life. Any life.”

\--

 _Give it a day,_ Yang had said. Blake understands, but doesn’t need it. She sets an alarm for ten-fifteen the following evening, and spends the majority of her day cleaning; Sun and Neptune are actually pretty neat, as far as boys go, but there are a few random things they miss on - unpacking the dishwasher, actually pressing the start button on the laundry, and remembering to replace the trashbags. Yang flashes through her mind every other step, a fixture, a fire. _No, not a fire,_ she corrects herself. _Something that grows._

She does her own room from top to bottom; the windows look as if they’ve never seen a day of rain, and the rose sits in a thin, tall glass vase, blooming brilliantly on the windowsill, along with the lily, the carnation, every other flower Yang’s ever grown and handed to her; the hardwood floor shines underneath her feet. She glances down, catches the brown of it, and for a moment is startled when she doesn’t find flowers sprouting around her.

An idea strikes her suddenly; she pries her door open, rushes by Sun in the kitchen, cleaning out the refrigerator. He glances at her but doesn’t ask, only smiles quietly to himself like he’s following her plan. 

She steps out front, furtively looks up and down the street - just on the crazy, off-chance this happens to work, she doesn’t want the neighbors catching her - and deems it clear, stepping off the porch and into the grass. She waits a second, and then--

Today they’re peonies, red chrysanthemums, and something she thinks is freesia; she watches them bud and blossom, her heart unfolding like their petals, and laughs.

\--

Yang’s actually at home when she gets the text, an unusual occurrence for her; it’s not that she doesn’t enjoy being alone, but more as if she’d rather be alone with something beautiful. Something that can speak to her, flourish beneath her hands. It’s late, just after ten, but not late enough that she can’t justify going out again if the silence starts to eat at her.

Her scroll keeps vibrating, and she vaguely realizes she’s being _called;_ it’s such a foreign concept to her that it takes her a moment of fumbling to answer, barely even checking the caller I.D. “Hello?” 

“ _Hey,_ ” Blake’s voice echoes through the speaker. “ _It’s been a day. I haven’t changed my mind._ ” 

Yang smiles widely, teeth digging into her bottom lip, trying not to scream; her chest feels like it may blow itself open. She says, “Hey,” happiness evident in her tone, and then, “I’m coming over.” 

“ _Okay,_ ” Blake says, voice betraying her excitement. 

“Okay,” Yang answers, already slipping on her shoes. “I’ll be there in like, two minutes.” 

She hangs up, nearly runs outside into the night, and she swears the grass is talking to her, the moon is laughing, every star is lit in an applause. 

Blake is leaning out her window when Yang arrives, chin resting in her palm, elbow propped up against the windowsill. She smiles when she catches sight of Yang emerging from the trees, and Yang mirrors her expression, crooking a finger teasingly and beckoning her forward.

“Come with me,” Yang says. 

“Where?”

“Does it matter?” 

“No,” Blake says, already reaching for a sweater. “It doesn’t matter at all.”

\--

“Where are _you_ going?” Sun says accusatorily, keeping his voice somewhat lowered; Neptune is passed out on his chest. “It’s pretty late, Belladonna.” 

“Nowhere,” she says, shoving her feet into her boots. 

“Going to see your _girlfriend?_ ” he teases. She rolls her eyes. 

“She’s not my girlfriend,” she says, clearly not having the time for him. “But yes.” 

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” 

Blake actually offers him a smirk at that. “That’s _exactly_ what I’m trying to do,” she answers, and opens the door quietly, slipping out into the night. Neptune stirs as the door shuts, not as gentle as the unlock. 

He yawns, adjusting his head slightly. “What’s going on?” he asks sleepily. 

“You know, I think letting Blake live here was a smart move,” Sun says, his gaze focused back on the television, airing yet another murder mystery documentary. “We’ve probably got the safest house in the entire world.” 

\--

Yang takes her hand, leading her back through the woods behind the house, following a similar path to the one she’d followed the night after meeting Yang the first time. They empty into the same clearing, though in about half the time; Blake guesses she must’ve been weaving originally, bobbing through the trees. 

Yang steps forward, Blake’s hand slipping from her grasp, and raises her arms, stretching. She exhales contentedly, peaceful, landscape extending serenely in front of them. She turns back, jerks her head to the side, gesturing Blake over.

“Come on,” she says. “You’ll love this. Take a seat.”

“It’s wet,” Blake points out, tasting the dampness of the air. 

“I’ll grow you some nice new grass,” Yang says sarcastically, plopping down without a care. “Now take a seat, high maintenance.” 

Blake scoffs, lowering herself down beside Yang. “I am _not_ high maintenance,” she says. “I just did laundry; _excuse_ me for caring if I get my ass wet.” 

Yang snickers. “I love it when you’re feisty.” She wraps an arm around Blake’s waist, pulls her close until Blake’s back is half-resting against Yang’s chest. Blake sighs before she can stop herself, relaxing into her embrace automatically, head lolling back against Yang’s shoulder.

“Okay,” she says, instantly calm, soothed. “I’m waiting.”

Yang lowers her lips to the shell of Blake’s ear, starts to count. “Five,” she murmurs, Blake shuddering at the warmth of her breath. “Four, three, two…” 

Tiny lights suddenly flicker up around them, in front of them, stretching out across the clearing; Blake’s lips part, subtly stunned at the sight, the ephemeral beauty of the shimmering glow popping in and out of existence. She rests her arm over Yang’s around her stomach, fingers splayed against the back of her wrist. 

“You don’t have fireflies in Menagerie, do you?” Yang whispers. Blake shakes her head. 

“No,” she says, awed. “It’s too warm.” 

“Vale and Atlas are best suited for them here,” Yang says quietly. “Atlas’s are around sunset, only in the summer. But Vale’s last from the early spring until fall.”

“It’s beautiful,” Blake breathes out, extending a hand to one glittering a foot from their faces. “Wow.” 

“I thought you’d like to see it,” Yang tells her, and as if she can’t help herself, drops a kiss to the side of Blake’s head. Blake’s fingers tighten around her wrist. “Sorry,” she whispers. “I couldn’t - I couldn’t help it.” 

“It’s okay,” Blake says, thinks of turning in her arms and kissing her right then, lowering her back against the grass. She doesn’t. The sight in front of her is too precious to look away from, too fleeting to ignore. “I don’t mind.” 

They lapse into silence, happy to sit together and watch the world glimmering around them like the stars are dripping from the sky, like floating lanterns without a cover, like each represents a wish. 

“Actually, I thought of another question,” Blake says, tilting her head up, admiring the length of Yang’s eyelashes, the bridge of her nose, her jawline. 

“Go ahead,” Yang says, only a hint of nervousness underlying her tone. She keeps her eyes trained in front of her, one hand curling against the grass, supporting her, the other still resting on Blake’s stomach. 

“Why me?” Blake asks. “People _literally_ worship you. You could have anyone. Why me?”

Yang’s quiet for a moment; she rests her cheek against Blake’s head lightly, pulls her closer. The tall grass sways lightly in a breeze that wasn’t there seconds previously.

“Blake Belladonna,” Yang finally murmurs, and smiles softly. “There’s just something _about_ you.”

Blake doesn’t kiss her, and Yang doesn’t expect her to. It’s somehow perfect anyway.

\--

 _Hey ive finally got some time off,_ Ruby texts her the next day; she’s sitting on her couch with the television on mute, playing a game on her scroll. _Do u have time for ur dearest sister or r u busy with ur new gf_

_she isnt my gf yet and yes i do have time for u of course <3_

“Great,” Ruby announces loudly from outside her living room window, “because I’m here.”

“Fucking _shit,_ ” Yang exclaims, jumping, heart pounding with adrenaline. “You _know_ I hate it when you do that.” 

“It’s a classic,” Ruby says, looking ridiculous as she solemnly speaks to Yang through the glass. “Let me in.”

“Let yourself in.” 

“Okay,” Ruby says, walking around towards the front door. It unlocks a moment later, opening without being touched. “I was trying to be polite. Weiss keeps getting on my case for _breaking and entering,_ or something stupid.”

Yang pats the cushions next to her; Ruby throws herself down, sprawled out. “Whose house are you breaking into?” she asks.

“Weiss’s.” 

Yang rolls her eyes. “She’s so dramatic,” she says. “You’re _dating her._ ” 

“That’s what _I_ said!” Ruby exclaims. “She was just embarrassed because she was like, in the shower one time, and I scared her so badly she blew up one of her pipes.”

Yang stretches her legs across Ruby’s lap, laughing at the visual. “That’s fucking hilarious.” 

“It was pretty funny,” Ruby agrees. “We fixed it in like, five minutes, but she was _pissed._ ”

“She’s always mad about something,” Yang dismisses, typing out a message to Blake. “Being angry is like, her version of happy.” 

“I’m telling her you said that.” 

“Be my guest,” she says, tossing her scroll to the side. “Want a drink?” 

“Water, please,” Ruby requests as Yang gets up. “I don’t drink beer.” 

Yang exhales loudly. “Okay, I don’t know why you’re all so convinced I only drink _beer,_ ” she says theatrically. “Like, what’s up with that? Pyrrha said the _same_ thing two nights ago--”

“Don’t you remember buying us all a case?” Ruby asks, pushing herself haphazardly against the pillows. “You had some bad night because of Raven like a few weeks back, and you said you were taking a page out of Qrow’s book and becoming an alcoholic. You were, like, already drunk at this point, by the way.”

Yang pauses with the bottle halfway to her mouth, the memory flooding back to her. “Oh,” she says, water spilling against her counter. “Oh, _shit._ I fucking forgot about that.” 

“How’s dear old _mom_ these days, anyway,” Ruby says, obvious air of sarcasm about her; Yang had never liked her, and Ruby had never liked her for what she did to Yang. 

“No idea,” Yang answers cheerfully, evaporating the water, dusting off the marble. “Qrow’s dealing with her now.” 

“Nice,” Ruby says, and wiggles her eyebrows suggestively. “And how’s your new _girlfriend?_ ” 

“She’s not my girlfriend yet,” Yang answers, forcing her blood to cool. “But she’s great, thanks.” The sincerity, however, can’t drain itself from her voice. 

Ruby smiles at her, genuine, heartfelt. “Yang,” she says, “I just want you to be happy.”

Yang understands the sentiment for what it is; an acceptance in _spite_ of, a lack of willingness to judge. “I’m happy,” Yang tells her honestly, walking back over to the couch. “I promise. I’m really happy.” 

Ruby pulls her in for a sideways hug, her chin against the top of Yang’s head. “Good,” she says softly. “Then that’s all that matters.”

\--

It’s Saturday when she sees Yang again, though she almost misses the knock at her window over the pounding of the rain on the roof. She pulls back her curtains, lifts it just enough to hear her voice. She’s standing out there as dry and untouched as if the sun is shining down on her rather than the entire ocean falling from the sky.

“Come outside,” she says with a smile Blake would brave a flood for.

“I don’t really like the rain,” Blake admits through the window. “I don’t like getting wet.” 

Yang only rolls her eyes. “Is that all?” she asks. “You’re fine. Come outside.” 

Blake pulls a face. “Did you listen to a word I said?” 

“Blake,” Yang says exasperatedly, hands against the windowsill, “trust me.” 

“Absolutely not,” Blake says, glancing up at the ominously dark clouds. “You’re ridiculous.” 

“Look,” Yang reasons, “I _have_ to let it rain. It’s the start of rice planting season. But I can keep you dry.” 

Blake bites the inside of her lip, considers her carefully. Yang puts her palms together and interlaces her fingers in a begging motion, even going as far as to throw in a pathetic pout. “Fine,” Blake says at last, giving in. Like she’d ever really planned on dismissing Yang for long, anyway. “I’m coming.” 

She slips off her bed, makes a big show of pulling on her raincoat and lacing up her boots, and Yang only harrumphs loudly in annoyance. Blake smiles when her back is turned. “You’re not gonna need all that,” Yang calls. 

“I’m not taking any chances,” Blake answers, heading out of the room towards the front door. Neptune catches her walking by from the living room where he and Sun are watching some romcom, raising his eyebrows. 

“ _You?_ ” he says. “You’re going out in _this_ weather?” 

“Can’t your girlfriend lay off of the rain?” Sun asks, and Blake throws him a dirty look. “It’s been like this since last night.” 

“It’s the start of rice planting season,” Blake says flatly. “And she’s not my girlfriend.” 

“Sure,” Sun says sarcastically. 

“Well, you can let her know that I _like_ the rain,” Neptune says. “It’s exactly the mood I need to write. Melancholy, yet hopeful. You two always act like it’s the damn apocalypse or something. Rain doesn’t always signal the end, you know. Sometimes it’s the beginning.” 

“Dude,” Sun says, smacking the back of his head lightly, “you’re _afraid_ of _water_.” 

“I’m channeling that fear into creativity,” he says. 

“Oh my God.” 

“Anyway,” Neptune turns back to her, “tell your girlfriend that I’m a fan of the current atmosphere.” 

“She’s _not_ my - okay, whatever,” Blake says, giving up. She knows they’re not actually going to stop. “I’ll pass the feedback along.” 

They wave her off, and she pries the front door open, slipping out onto the porch. Yang’s leaning against the wall next to her, and she’s grinning widely, having overheard every word. Blake sighs. “Don’t _you_ start.” 

“Girlfriend, huh,” she says. “I didn’t know we’d made it that far, but I’m not against the idea.” 

“I never would have guessed,” Blake says dryly. “ _You?_ With a crush on _me?_ First time I’m hearing about it.” 

“Okay, shut up,” Yang says, laughing, and Blake’s mouth softens into a smile; there’s something about Yang she can’t resist, something underneath her skin and muscle and bone that doesn’t allow for pessimism, regardless of how fake. “I never actually _said_ I have a crush on you.” 

“You keeping asking me on dates,” Blake points out. “You’re not very subtle.” 

“Well _excuse_ me,” Yang says, flipping Blake’s hood off her head. Blake scowls. “I don’t get a lot of practice at dating.” 

“Who’d resist _you?_ ” Blake asks, and she means it to come across a little more mordant than it does; she internally winces at her own weak tone. She continues nonchalantly, “Just grow them a garden or something. Any flower they’ve ever received will look like a joke in comparison.” 

“A garden, huh,” Yang repeats, stepping out into the rain. Something about the idea seems to amuse her. “Well, I’ll keep that in mind.” She glances back, realizing Blake isn’t following her. “What are you waiting for?” 

“The clouds to disperse or something,” Blake says, still looking hesitant. The rain is nearly torrential, coming down in sheets. “This is a little much.” 

“Some of the fields aren’t in naturally occuring floodlands,” Yang says. “I have to make up for that. It’ll be lighter the next few days.” She extends a hand. “Trust me.” 

So Blake does.

She reaches out, interlaces their fingers, and steps to Yang’s side; she shuts her eyes automatically, waiting for the pelt of the water, but nothing happens. She blinks foolishly, and Yang’s watching her, grin slipping back across her face. The rain pounds around them, but doesn’t come within an inch of their bodies, like an invisible wall protects them both. 

“I told you,” Yang says, rolling her eyes. “God. I have magical powers and a girl doesn’t trust me to protect her from a little rain.” 

“First of all, it’s a lot of rain,” Blake argues mildly. “Second of all, _magic_ is still a bit of a new concept to me. It’s a learning curve.” 

Yang seems to give her that. “Well, when I say you can trust me,” she says, “you can trust me. I won’t let anything happen to you.” 

“Sentimental,” Blake says, embers simmering underneath her heart anyway, her blood warm in her veins. 

“You think it’s cute,” Yang counters, not falling for it. “I see right through you, Belladonna.” 

Blake exhales, grinning. There’s no contesting the facts. “So where are we going?” she asks instead, trying not to focus on the fact that they’re still holding hands. 

“Somewhere beautiful,” Yang says, tossing her a shy glance. “That’s why you came here in the first place, isn’t it? To find something beautiful?” 

Blake grips her fingers a little tighter, taken aback by the observation; Yang keeps walking steadily, doesn’t mention the change in pressure, like she’s letting Blake have her moment. “Maybe,” Blake admits, and sighs to herself, hoping the sound is hidden underneath the rain. “But I think I already found it.” 

Yang smiles, eyes averted down, her pulse fluttering in her wrist. She’s blushing slightly; the sight of it has Blake’s mind running wild, which is the way it always seems to run these days, wondering what that blush would look like if Blake kissed her. She doesn’t say anything more, just allows Yang to lead her on to a large tree situated behind the house.

Yang glances at her. “Okay, this might be a little weird, but it’s how I travel,” she says, and places a palm flat against the bark, and Blake watches as it caves in, like panels of a wall extending inward--

\--but it doesn’t exit the other side. It seems to go on further than the tree itself, a pathway, a portal. Blake raises her other hand to the inside of Yang’s elbow, clutching at her, peering in. 

“Wow,” she breathes out. “So you can get anywhere like this?” 

“Anywhere there’s trees,” Yang says, nudging her on. “Come on. It’ll close behind us.” 

It’s no different than walking down a hallway, except at the end of this one is a beach miles away from where they’d just left; it’s still raining, the sand damp and clumpy beneath their boots, patches of grass poking out. Yang guides her to the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean, and out in the middle of the bay is an island, a storm swirling low around tall, ancient-looking trees. 

Electricity crackles in the air; her mouth tastes like salt and copper, and there’s the flash of a dream, Yang standing underneath a towering ocean with a smile, her eyes a violent shade of red. 

“What is this?” Blake asks, captivated. Lightning seems to be striking the island at random, quick intervals, like magnetism, gravity. Like the island itself is a conduit. 

“Nobody knows,” Yang says, leaning close to her ear to be heard over the roar of the storm. “It’s too dangerous to study - the currents are super rough, and it’s impossible to fly; there’s no landing space. Plus, there’s something weird with the polarity of it, or whatever. So navigation systems don’t tend to work.” 

“None of those things pose a problem to you,” Blake points out. 

Yang allows a small smile. “No,” she agrees. “I’ve been over there. It’s...unsettling. I think - I think it’s magical energy. Leftover from some old battle.” She hesitates. “I think...I think it’s a grave.” 

“Really?” Blake asks, staring out; the ocean seems to swirl around it like whirlpools, and the back of her neck tingles, her throat tight. “How can you tell?” 

“It’s just a feeling,” Yang says, raising and dropping her shoulders in lieu of a true answer. “Magic, when it’s strong enough to be felt, is undeniable.” 

Blake tilts her head at that, catches Yang’s eye, her hair whipping around her in the wind, her lips red from the slight chill of the biting air. “Yeah,” she exhales, angling her body towards Yang. “Somehow, I think I know what you mean.”

Yang looks at her then, _really_ looks at her, doesn’t turn away or hide, doesn’t shrink nervously; she lets it be, lets Blake draw close to her with implication, expectation. Her irises reflect the steel of the ocean, mirroring a color akin to lavender under a sunset, and she’s staring at Blake like she’s giving up, like she loves her, like she’s handing her that sky. Take this, she’s saying, this clap of thunder, this wildfire waiting to start. Take this like it’s my heart.

“Oh, fuck it,” Blake murmurs, too close to stop now, too enthralled for sensibility. “Drop it.” 

Yang raises an eyebrow curiously, mouth curled bemusedly. “Drop what?” 

“Your - magic, or whatever,” Blake says, barely able to concentrate on her words. “This’ll make a much better story.” 

“What?” Yang’s bewilderment only grows. “Don’t you hate the rain?” 

Blake’s tongue darts out, sweeps across her bottom lip. “Trust me,” she says. 

Yang stares at her a moment longer, contemplating, and then shrugs; the first droplet hits the top of Blake’s head, another sliding down Yang’s cheek, rolling off the sleeves of their coats, down their backs; Blake reaches out, fists Yang’s jacket in her hands, pulls her forward and kisses her.

It isn’t tentative but it’s gentle; her lips press softly against Yang’s for a brief moment, and then she pulls away and ghosts over her, mouths barely brushing until Blake works up the nerve to kiss her again. Yang seems to go slack from the shock, unmoving, but her eyelids flutter closed automatically; another second and her palms slip across Blake’s cheeks, wet and damp from rain, and then she’s kissing Blake back, lips tender and yielding. It doesn’t feel like a first kiss, barely even feels like a second or a third; there’s something painfully familiar about it, the way Yang sighs into her mouth, Blake’s fingers moving to tangle in Yang’s hair, how she tastes like mist and honey and seasalt, her heartbeat rattling like thunder. 

The sky cracks open above them, lightning weaving through the clouds like a bridge from the island and never striking. Yang pulls her closer, keeps kissing her, and Blake barely notices the rain at all.


	2. Chapter 2

“How’s your girlfriend?” Sun calls from the kitchen when she returns later that afternoon, still grinning, her cheeks flushed and her lips suddenly lonely. 

“She’s great,” Blake answers casually, passing by him into her room, and he drops the pan he’d been washing back into the sink. She shuts her door before he can inundate her with questions, leaning back against the wood and smiling.

\--

 _How’s your girlfriend?_ Pyrrha texts her teasingly.

_shes good thx ;)_

_!!!!!!!!!_

_DONT tell weiss im still working on that_

_Haha, I understand! Happy for you!_

_< 3_

“I _get_ you’re all dumb and in love now,” Ruby says, digging a single blade into the chest of a Ursa and dragging it down, “but we _do_ have work to do.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Yang answers blithely, but narrows her eyes to the scene in front of her and focuses. Ruby watches as she holds up a hand and rolls her fingers into a fist one at a time, and for each finger, a Grimm is lifted off its feet and contorted painfully, bones breaking and bodies forced into repulsive, misshapen lumps. She squeezes her fist, and all at once come the cries of each creature, before Yang relaxes her hand and they fall limply to the ground, dissipating.

“You have _got_ to teach me that,” Ruby says, awed, and Yang only grins, busy enough to mask her discomfort.

\--

Yang becomes a constant in Blake’s life like she’s always been there, like she’s always been the one waiting at the end of a long day, like Blake plucked her heart from a garden as a child and never looked back. She gets Yang to draw out of herself, learning her element in a way she’d hadn’t previously been allowed; she _is_ charismatic, even if sometimes awkward in her interactions, exuding charm and confidence attractive to anybody around her. 

She starts hanging out around Blake’s house a little more, starts relaxing around Sun and Neptune like they’re friends instead of fans, and they stop treating her as such. It’s a bit disarming for the boys the first time they get home from a date and catch the two of them lounging around in kitchen, drinking casually and talking; the three of them stare at each other uncertainly, Blake only rolling her eyes and tutting under her breath. 

“She’s not, like, an _alien,_ ” she points out, disrupting the silence. 

Sun seems to come into himself. “Oh, shit!” he says, leaning heavily against Neptune’s side, and Blake realizes he’s definitely drunk. “Yang! You’re in _our house!_ ” 

“Um,” Yang says, and grins awkwardly. “We can go to mine if we’re like, in your way--” 

“Wh-no!” Sun exclaims, taking a step forward as if to physically stop her from leaving. “No, you’re totally good! Hang out with us!” 

“He’s had a few drinks,” Neptune says, mostly for Yang’s benefit. She relaxes, her smile turning genuine. 

“It’s cool,” she says, easing. “I actually bought beer, if you want one.” She nods to the case on the island counter. 

“Woah,” Sun breathes out dreamily, catching the can she slides him with his tail. “Yang Xiao Long bought _us_ beer. This is like, bucket-list.” 

Yang laughs like she’s caught off-guard by the response, a little more loudly than she intends; Blake grins at the sound, wanting to repeat it again and again. Yang’s lighter than she used to be, an airiness to her that hadn’t been there when they’d met; now it’s like she giggles and startles herself at the noise, like it’s one she’s never heard before. 

“What are you two up to?” Neptune asks, mostly to save Sun any further embarrassment for his future self to face. He accepts a beer too, cracking open the tab smoothly. 

Blake shrugs. “Just talking,” she says. “We didn’t really have plans.” 

“We’re gonna play a board game,” Sun says eagerly. “D’you wanna join us?” 

Yang blinks like the concept slightly confuses her, but accepts regardless. “Sure,” she says, sounding a bit as if she’s surprised just to be invited. “What game?”

“Don’t worry,” Neptune says with a grin. “It’s right up your alley.” 

\--

It’s called something like _Kingdom: Remnant Wars,_ though she’s not sure on the actual title because Sun keeps mixing up the order of the words. They each play as one of the four kingdoms - _Dibs on Atlas,_ Yang says, _because if I lose, I can blame it on Weiss_ \- and Blake ends up taking Vale, Sun on Vacuo, leaving Neptune with Haven. Blake explains the rules through a practice round, and the strategy itself seems to come intuitively to Yang, who picks it up quicker than Blake remembers being able to when they’d first introduced _her_ to it. 

Yang doesn’t win her first game - that victory goes to Blake, to which Yang presses a loud kiss against her cheek for appropriately defending her honor - but she has more fun with the three of them than she can ever remember having, drinking beer and yelling at each other for ballsy moves, including a particularly magnificent trap card of Blake’s that had reversed the loyalty of Neptune’s entire army, and a drunken attack of Sun’s on Yang’s forces in which he decimated himself. 

They play a second round - though none of them are sure what they’re hoping for, as they’re all significantly drunk, empty cans piling up around the table - and Yang catalogues details: Blake’s more competitive than she’d let on the first game, and she tends to lift herself onto her knees when she’s making a move, like she may have to physically spring and run at any given moment depending on the outcome. She doesn’t let the boys interrupt her, and instead speaks over them until they shut their mouths and listen. And she stares at Yang far, far too often, lips in a smile she’d never let anyone see if she were sober. 

“What is it?” Yang asks upon catching her in the act. 

Blake says seriously, “Babe, I adore you, but you’re done for,” and slams down a spell card with enough force to knock an empty can off the table; its effect is to reflect all damage Yang had thought she’d just done back to her, and Sun actually falls against the floor, laughing at the betrayal written across Yang’s expression. 

“Just know,” Yang says dramatically, narrowing her eyes, “that I will _not_ forget this declaration of war.” 

Blake lifts a hand to her mouth, giggling adorably, and Yang’s not sure who she’s fooling, if anybody at all. Blake’s already forgiven.

\--

It’s been fun, she says just after midnight, but I have some work to do; Sun makes a noise of protest in his throat. _Now?_ he asks disbelievingly, and Blake only shrugs on her behalf, already used to Yang’s strange hours.

Yang waves her scroll in the air. “Duty calls,” she says. “I’m needed in Atlas, so…” 

“Say no more,” Neptune says, holding up a hand. “You’re a very important woman. We completely understand.” 

“Honestly,” she says, standing with a smile, “I had a really great time. Thanks for - you know, inviting me.” 

“Dude, you’re welcome _any_ time,” Sun says earnestly. “Three’s a crowd, but four’s a party.” 

Blake actually laughs at the phrase, her fingers falling to Yang’s; the boys head to their room, and Blake tugs her to the door, stepping out into the cool air with her. Yang pulls her close, kisses her once, Blake’s other hand resting over her heart. 

“I’ll text you,” Yang says. “Whatever this is shouldn’t take long.” 

“Okay.” 

“They’re cool,” she adds, somewhat sheepishly. “Sun and Neptune, I mean. It was fun to - I don’t really - I don’t get to be a normal person a lot.” 

“But if you were,” Blake says, “we may have never met.” 

“True,” Yang allows, hands settling against her hips. “Pros and cons.” 

“I like you,” Blake says, kisses her again. “You as - _you,_ and everything that comes with it.” She smirks mischievously, stepping back towards the house. “But anytime you feel like getting your ass kicked at a board game, you let us know.” 

Yang walks away idly thinking of a life without a burden, one where they’re lying in a field of flowers that grow themselves, and she’s granted permission to drift off with her head in Blake’s lap, Blake’s fingers stroking through her hair. Sunlight falls through the leaves, peppers them in warmth, and there are no monsters, no looming shadows; it’s only them, at peace, and a world in silence.

\--

Blake dreams again that night.

She’s on that same beach Yang had taken her to, but no island emerges off the coast, no trees a conduit for an endless lightning strike; it’s just an ocean under a dark black sky, burning as if ash from a volcano rather than a mass of clouds. Someone’s fingers slip through hers, tight, almost painful in the desperation of their grasp; she looks over, finds Yang by her side, face set and stoic and agonized. 

Don’t do this, Yang says, begs, breaks. Please don’t do this to me. 

I’m not leaving you, Blake hears her own voice. Not really. Not forever. 

For now, Yang murmurs, for now is still too long a time.

I will love you for eternity, Blake says. Whether this is a curse or a blessing is yet to be determined, but I will love you for eternity, and when you find me again, I swear I will make up every day that I have lost.

She releases Yang’s hand, and the loss of contact is so traumatizing that her eyelids snap open, chest heaving in a pant, reaching for something that isn’t there. 

Already it fades and frays at the edges, the memory of it scratching out its own eyes almost instantly. An ocean before a grave, and Yang, tears streaming down her cheeks. 

It’s one forty-six in the morning, and she’s barely slept at all; she reaches for her scroll, opens her texts, and simply says, _I miss you._

In a way that aches. In a way that heals. 

_I miss you,_ she says, and it sounds like an apology.

\--

Her scroll vibrates, and somehow she knows what the message reads even before opening it, feels the gape in her own heart, the sudden longing, regret; feels it like it’s happening to her. A dream, she thinks. Maybe more of a nightmare.

 _baby,_ she texts back quickly when nobody is watching her, hopes it conveys enough.

She wonders if the depth of emotion - the mirror of it - ever confuses Blake, sometimes, ever sets her on edge, throws her off her guard. Wonders if Blake accepts it without question. Wonders if Blake _knows._

“Earth to Yang,” Weiss is saying, waving her hand in front of Yang’s face. “I’m aware that it’s late, but we’re going to need you to be conscious for this.”

Yang blinks, focuses back on the scene in front of her; Pyrrha has her eyes trained on the security camera screens in the guard tower, two men hunched over in their chairs below her, passed out. Ruby’s reading over Winter’s report again, points out something on a screen, murmuring. 

“I’m fine,” Yang says. “I’m awake.” 

“Are you positive?” Weiss drills. “You’ve been _distracted_ recently, and we can’t afford it here.” 

“She’s been hanging out with her _girlfriend,_ ” Ruby lets slip teasingly, overhearing, and immediately claps a hand to her mouth, expression overwhelmingly apologetic as Weiss’s gaze whips to Yang. 

“Your _what?_ ” she asks lowly, eyes narrowing. 

“Girlfriend,” Yang says, rising to the challenge. 

“For how long?” Weiss probes, and glares around to Pyrrha, Ruby. “Did you _both_ know about this?” 

“Yes,” Yang answers on their behalf. “I told them first, because I knew _you_ would have a coronary, despite you saying it’s none of your business--” 

“I think I’m appropriately concerned!” Weiss argues, outraged. “I thought you’d go on a few dates, have fun, realize it wasn’t right for you because how could it _possibly_ be when you don’t even know what right _feels_ like--” 

She cuts herself off suddenly on Ruby’s intake of breath, recognizing she’d crossed a line, but too far past it to step back now. Yang looks at her, jaw tight, irises like fire; Pyrrha moves forward slowly, preparing to get in between them. Ruby only hovers, understanding of both sides, unable to mediate.

“Nothing I do is _any_ of your concern,” Yang tells her dangerously, power tangible enough to prickle in the air, a thousand tiny jabs of needles. She takes a step closer, and Weiss holds tall, strong. “I’ve never _asked_ you for that, and I _never_ will. So I’m going to do _whatever I want,_ and there’s nothing _you_ can do to stop me.” 

Weiss’s hands clench into fists, her body taut and strung, and steps forward--

“Ladies,” Winter’s voice drawls from the entryway, bored and annoyed, “as fascinating as your relationship drama is, I’d prefer we get on with it.” 

Yang scowls, turns away from a murderous Weiss and towards the building they’re set to destroy, unassuming and plain. “Get out of here, Winter,” she commands lowly, unable to control her anger. “It’s empty, right?” 

“Yes.” 

“Good.” Yang cracks her neck, rolls her shoulders. “You, on the other hand,” she directs to Weiss, “move as close as you’d like. Maybe I’ll--”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Pyrrha interrupts hastily, sensing the direction they’re retreating to. “Yang, Weiss is worried about you and doesn’t know how to convey her emotion in a vulnerable way,” she says shortly. “And Weiss - I love you, but Yang’s love life has nothing to do with you, and you have _got_ to stop acting so entitled to it. Maybe she’d actually _tell you_ things if you did.” 

The two of them scowl at each other, comprehending Pyrrha’s words but unable to let them go just yet. 

“Whatever,” Yang says, and flicks her wrist carelessly, a sound like a bomb going off in the distance.

\--

 _EXPLOSION IN ATLAS MILITARY HEADQUARTERS_ , the headline reads the next day, all over the news. _Evidence found of dangerous, highly illegal aura experimentation…_

“Oh shit,” Sun says, munching on a piece of toast while watching the story unfold. “Early this morning...” 

“Atlas, huh?” Neptune says, rubbing his chin. “You think - do you think it was _them?_ ” 

“Yes,” Blake says, another possibility never even crossing her mind; the two of them glance over at her, intrigued. “Yang goes up to Atlas a lot,” she explains, catching their looks. “She never told me exactly what was happening there, but I guess now we know.” She nods at the television. 

“Damn,” Sun says. “Aura experimentation. That’s pretty wild.” 

“And _extremely_ dangerous,” Neptune says. “I studied it for a bit when I was thinking of becoming a doctor. No wonder they took drastic action.” 

Blake opens an article of the event on her scroll, takes a screenshot, and texts it to Yang. _You, right?_ she asks, getting an almost immediate response.

_lol yea. fuckin ironwood. hes lucky we only left him with a warning_

_That was a warning?_

_well step 2 is like, we kill him, so yea. he runs atlas “officially” so its not like we can get him thrown in prison_

_well we could but itd be like a whole thing, so time consuming_

_Wow. Think he got the message?_

_oh i think hes gonna start cooperating. btw do you wanna come over tomorrow? im gonna be busy today (obviously) but tomorrow im all yours_

_Absolutely :)_

_:))))_

“Yeah, it was her,” Blake confirms. “It was only a warning, apparently.” 

“God,” Sun says, bringing his coffee to his mouth with his tail. “That’s so wild. They’re _so_ cool.” 

“You’re such a nerd,” she and Neptune say simultaneously, and clink their mugs together, laughing at his overexaggerated, scandalized expression.

“ _Someone’s_ gotta, like, fawn all over your girlfriend,” he defends.

“Don’t worry,” Blake says, grinning. “I’m doing that just fine.”

\--

Weiss doesn’t speak to her the rest of the day unless absolutely necessary, and Ruby only offers her apologetic looks, not wanting to take sides on a problem so personal. Yang knows she supports her, knows Ruby can’t say anything to change Weiss’s mind at this point in time, anyway, and doesn’t fault her for it.

“You, take some time to _think,_ ” Pyrrha directs at Weiss when they’re finally all cleared to go, and grabs Yang by the arm. “And _you,_ if you aren’t needed in Vale - come over, for a bit.” She’s significantly softer in tone, warmer. 

“Okay,” Yang agrees, and opens a doorway to her yard without another look back. 

“Thanks,” Pyrrha says appreciatively, stepping through the wood. “I’m so drained. I don’t know _how_ you have so much energy.” 

Yang only smiles, doesn’t betray her own nervousness at the statement. “Probably practice,” she says. “Like Ruby with levitating - I can’t hold myself up _nearly_ as long.”

Pyrrha hums, accepts the explanation without a further push, leading Yang into the house. “So, I have an ulterior motive,” she says, motioning for Yang to take a seat at her kitchen counter. 

“Of course you do,” Yang says, grinning; it’s never anything out-of-bounds with Pyrrha, respectful and unconditional and accepting. 

Pyrrha grabs two beers out of her fridge, passes one over, cracking her own with a grimace. “I hate that I kind of enjoy these now,” she admits unwillingly on a tangent, leaning against the granite surface. “You bought so many that I’ve been passing them out whenever I have friends over.”

“Oh, yeah,” Yang says in surprise, more at her own forgetfulness than actual shock, one boot slipping off the rung of the stool. “You hang out with Jaune’s friends all the time, right?” 

“Pretty frequently,” Pyrrha affirms. “His two best friends, this girl Nora and her boyfriend Ren, moved here from Haven a few months ago, so we tend to double-date a lot.” 

“That’s cute,” Yang says warmly, means it. “It’s definitely - it’s nice, right? Having friends who aren’t _us._ ” 

“Oh, absolutely.” Pyrrha raises her can. “Not that I don’t adore you all,” she says, “but yes. It’s nice--”

“--To feel normal,” Yang finishes, and Pyrrha appears slightly startled at the shared sentiment. “Blake has roommates - these two boys Sun and Neptune - and they’ve been dating for like, ever, apparently; they invited me to play a board game with them yesterday night,” she explains, and pulls a face. “Which like, sounds lame, but...it was fun. We never get to just...do stuff like that, you know?”

“I get that,” Pyrrha says, following easily. “We’ve never had the opportunities to meet people like that, indulge in inconsequential activities.” 

“Yeah, exactly,” Yang says, oddly relieved to be understood. She hunches over slightly, shoulders drawing up. “I guess that’s another reason I’m so pissed off at Weiss,” she continues, voice turning into a reluctant grumble. “She just - she doesn’t. Get it, I mean. Her soulmate is literally someone she can never, ever lose, and their lives are always _so_ intertwined, like - at the same speed, you know? The same pace.”

“She doesn’t have anything to miss,” Pyrrha puts it into words for her. “She doesn’t know what it’s like. And, Yang, not that I agree with her take on this - but you _do_ have to remember that the three of us are the most stable relationship Weiss has ever had in this life. Her family…”

“I know, I know,” Yang says, allowing guilt. “They’re really...awful.” She quiets again, sighs. “That’s one thing I _do_ relate to her on.”

Pyrrha reaches out, rests her hand over Yang’s, squeezing once with a smile. “You’re doing fine,” she says gently. “I’d love to meet her, one day.” 

“Yeah,” Yang says, softening, smiling back. “I’d love that, too.” 

Maybe you will, she thinks. Maybe you already have.

\--

Blake gets to her house around six that evening, knocking casually on the door, and Yang opens it with a wide grin, looking adorable in a goldenrod sweater and leggings, her hair in a messy bun, clearly aiming for comfort over appearance. Not that it matters, either way; she’s always hypnotizing, enticing, regardless of how she appears physically. Like an addiction. Like there’s something in her blood that draws Blake closer. 

Blake steps into her, kisses her hello, and shuts the door gently; the entryway leads into the living room, dining room, kitchen, all open floorplan, and stairs are nestled against the back wall that Blake assumes must lead to her actual bedroom. It’s an appealing cross between modern rustic, raw-looking wood and stone shapes making up most of the surfaces and accents; bright colors are splashed in here and there, reds and yellows and oranges. She lives in a townhouse, which is what most of the homes lining the canals are, property all in high demand; Yang’s in particular has a gorgeous view and a balcony. Blake’s sure that’s not an accident. 

Yang follows her into the living room, silence dragging in a strange lull; she drops her purse on the coffee table, turns, catches Yang staring at her. She raises an eyebrow pointedly; Yang blushes slightly, rubbing the back of her neck.

“What?” Blake asks, taking off her jacket. 

“I’ve never seen you in a dress,” Yang admits sheepishly, gaze traveling purposefully down Blake’s body and up; it’s not much, a simple floral pattern similar to her duster, slim-fitting and falling about mid-thigh, tights on underneath. “I’m kind of into it.”

“‘Kind of’?” 

“Okay, _really_ into it.” She smiles, unapologetic, unashamed. “Sorry. I didn’t put in _nearly_ the effort you did.” 

Blake rolls her eyes. “Like you need to,” she says. “You’re, like, an otherworldly type of beautiful. I mean, you’re a blonde who can wear yellow. That’s a rare quality.” 

“Otherworldly, huh?” she repeats, and says seriously, “I hope that gets me places.” 

“What kinds of places?” 

“ _You_ know,” Yang insinuates, mouth half-curling, albeit teasingly. “Or I’m hoping you do, because I don’t, not really.” 

Blake laughs, raises a hand, rests it against her cheek. She’d already figured; the news doesn’t exactly come as a shock to her. “Never slept with a girl?” 

“Never slept with anyone,” Yang says dismissively. “Like I’ve had the time for that.” 

“Or the desire to,” Blake points out, pressing herself comfortably against Yang’s body; Yang’s arms wrap around her waist automatically. 

“Well, yeah, but I wasn’t gonna admit that.”

Blake leans up, captures her mouth again, fingers slipping behind her head and intertwining around the back of her neck. “I think it’s hot,” she murmurs, and Yang’s gaze darkens just slightly. “I like that you’ve only ever wanted me.”

“You have _no_ idea,” Yang says lowly. 

Blake pulls away teasingly with a smirk, one hand dropping to grasp Yang’s; she’s content to let the tension build a little longer, allow the moment to breathe. “Well,” she says, and Yang blinks as if waking from a trance, “aren’t you gonna show me around?” 

“Not much else to see,” Yang says, and clears her throat, noticing the way the words condense. “But sure.” 

Blake follows her up the stairs, and it’s sectioned off into two rooms, her own bedroom and a guest; her bedroom manages to be cluttered in an orderly way, a purposeful mess, somehow charming rather than distracting. Yang watches her walk around, idly running her fingers across random momentos of Yang’s like she’s seen them before, like they’re somehow part of her own memories. She picks up a framed photograph, smiling, and turns to Yang.

“Is this you and Ruby as children?” she asks, delighted. 

“Yeah,” Yang says, beaming; she steps up behind Blake, looking over her shoulder. “That’s our dad, Tai.” 

“And your mom?” 

Yang’s smile quiets, but doesn’t fade entirely, melancholy and bittersweet. “We have different mothers,” she explains, surprised to find it doesn’t sting with Blake there. “My mother, Raven, didn’t want me. And Ruby’s mother - Summer - died when I was around four. Ruby must’ve been about two.”

Blake sets the photo back on the dresser, feeling behind her for Yang’s fingers. She says, “It still hurts, doesn’t it?” and Yang laces their hands together, squeezes once. “Even though you’ve had a lot of lives, and a lot of families.” 

“Yeah,” Yang says tacitly. “I don’t have an emotional attachment to any of it. Like, it doesn’t feel like my past life was _mine,_ in that way.” She drops her chin against the curve of Blake’s shoulder. “So. It still hurts.”

“Yeah,” Blake murmurs. “I get that.” 

But the pressure of Yang’s heart releases, not like a bird or a balloon but an atmosphere, how air feels cleaner after rain. She presses her lips to Blake’s jaw once, raises back up, centering. “But it’s better with you here,” she adds, unable to keep it to herself.

Blake smiles, tugs on her fingers. “Let’s see this balcony of yours,” she says, and to Yang, her voice sounds like solace.

\--

It looks like an oil painting, the orange glow of the streetlamps reflecting against the water, small boats occasionally traveling by, slow against the current. Leafy trees pattern the banks, some with budding pink flowers. People pass by every so often, some alone, some together, some with dogs; Blake wrinkles her nose but doesn’t comment. Yang only holds back a laugh, averting her eyes to hide her amusement. 

“It’s so calming,” Blake says idly, swept away by the lack of urgency, the serenity.

“You sound surprised.” 

“I feel like I’ve never even - _known_ peace, before,” she says, and _is_ surprised at how true the statement is, thinks of her life under pressure, thinks of Adam, thinks of chaos. “Not like this.” 

“Yeah,” Yang answers, lets out a little sigh. “I know what you mean.”

“Something’s still bothering you,” Blake says, observing the weary line of her spine, the way she falls into her weight a little heavier than she’s used to. “And it’s not about your mother.”

Yang’s lips curve into a wry smile. “No,” she agrees, staring out at the lamps glittering against the canal. “Weiss and I got into a fight.” 

Blake frowns, sensing a mild disturbance underneath her words. “Was it bad?” she asks. “I know you’ve said you tend to clash, but...you seem upset.” 

Yang chews on the inside of her cheek, debate so obvious it’s like she’s having it aloud, somehow. “She doesn’t...like you,” Yang says finally, trying to frame it in a way Blake can understand. “Or, not so much _you,_ but you with _me._ ” 

“Why?” Blake says, bewildered. “Because I’m ‘normal’?” 

“You definitely aren’t that,” Yang says, smiling in a soft compliment. “But, technically, yes.”

“Is there some dating site for all-powerful, magical beings that I’m unaware of?” Blake asks sarcastically, slightly defensive. “Is that where she thinks you should be getting your kicks, or...?”

Yang makes a noise in her throat similar to a laugh, muted, but nudges Blake’s shoulder with her own. She sighs after, fingers relaxing against the railing; she’s been able to see through Blake since the beginning, finds the hurt there, the truth.

“Weiss likes things...in order,” Yang says slowly, leaning on her elbows against the balcony. “She likes things to be the way they’re supposed to be, without - disruption, I guess. She sees our existence and what we’re bound to as objective, as something we should fit into, not push the boundaries of. She’s rebellious, but not towards what she believes in.” 

“So in this scenario, I’m...the disruption?” Blake guesses, and Yang finally manages a smile at the absurdity of it. 

“From her perspective, anyway,” Yang says dryly.

“So what happened?” 

Yang rolls her eyes. “Well, I flipped out on her, obviously,” she says, exasperated. “I told her that I was gonna do whatever I wanted, and that she couldn’t do anything to stop me.” Yang’s eyes shimmer suddenly, more red than lilac, smile curving into a smirk like the hint of a storm. “Though I’d like to see her try,” she adds, low and vicious. “As if she _could._ ” 

Blake feels that familiar unraveling, uncurling in the pit of her stomach, tongue heavy in her mouth, breath a little too fragmented. “Why couldn’t she?” she manages to ask.

Yang’s irises flare brighter, almost to a glow in the dim moonlight. She straightens up, turns to Blake, and she looks capable of tearing the world apart with the crook of a finger, sinister and apocalyptic. Blake wants that underneath her, wants Yang with her hands grasping at sheets and her legs shaking, stumbling on a moan in her throat. 

“Because I’m stronger than her,” Yang says, voice coated in venomous satisfaction, and Blake finally, finally cracks. 

She reaches out, fists Yang’s sweater in her hands, and drags her forward, mouths colliding expectantly, like Yang had seen the desire scrawled across her face and adjusted accordingly before Blake had even had the time to think. She kisses Blake back a little more aggressively than she’s used to, and it only turns her on _more,_ hands traveling up to Yang’s hair and curling tightly. Blake sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, bites down, and Yang hums in her throat, fingers digging into Blake’s hips and pulling her in tightly. 

“Maybe,” Blake murmurs against her lips, “we should go inside.” 

“God,” Yang says, red still gleaming in her eyes, “like I’m gonna say no to _that._ ”

\--

It’s not just lust, not love driving her mouth against Yang’s, fingers finding the hem of her sweater and lifting it over her head; it’s a possessiveness so instinctual it’s all-consuming, and somewhere further, a blinding sort of ache, a homesickness. She exhales, runs her hands across Yang’s sides, settles them low on her bare back, her skin feeling hot and feverish. Like her blood is burning itself up just to create more space for Blake to inhabit.

Yang pulls on the tie keeping her hair up, lets it spiral loose and wild down her back, shoulders; she stares at Blake with hooded eyes and her fingers trail underneath Blake’s dress to the waistband of her tights, rolls them down over her hips, but Blake tugs them off, not even caring if they rip. She pushes Yang back against the bed, tugs her leggings off, and straddles her waist, hovering over her; Yang’s hands slip over her bare thighs and stall, waiting, irises the barest hint of red.

“Are you sure?” Yang asks, teeth releasing her bottom lip from her mouth.

Blake only smirks, and pulls her dress over head, tosses it off onto the floor; she actually feels the second Yang’s lungs stop working, lapsing, her lips parting. Blake leans back in, shifting her hips slightly against Yang’s, and Yang’s breath catches again, arresting. 

“Look,” Blake reasons lowly, “maybe this seems a little fast, but honestly, I would’ve done this the day we met.” 

“Oh, fuck,” Yang exhales, swallows, anticipatory. “It’s - it’s not fast.” 

It’s not even the first, Blake swears she hears, feels, thinks; like this belongs to her, has always belonged to her, Yang shivering underneath her, voice moaning in her ear. Like this is all somehow a memory and not just an experience. 

“Good,” Blake murmurs, heart drenched in need, in desperation. She wraps her fingers around Yang’s wrists, presses her to the bed, leans in teasingly; Yang looks on, hands in loose fists, gorgeous and dangerous and entirely in Blake’s control. 

She kisses Yang hotly again, tongue brushing through her mouth, and trails her lips off to her jawline, below her ear, down her neck, sucks hard over her pulse; Yang hums quietly, tilts her head to give Blake better access, spine arching automatically off the mattress. One strap of her black sheer bra falls off her shoulder, and Blake releases one wrist, reaches under her, unhooks it entirely; Yang crooks a knee, shifting restlessly, impatiently. 

“Please,” she says breathlessly, and Blake finally understands the kind of power that devours. 

She dips her mouth lower, lower, kissing down her sternum, her navel, her fingers digging into the insides of her thighs; she glances up to meet Yang’s eyes at the last moment, but finds lavender instead of red. Blake stops suddenly, stares at her, overwhelmed. 

She’s beautiful, she’s _so_ beautiful that Blake can’t remember another definition of it, hasn’t seen something anywhere near as stunning in her life, rivaling sunsets through storms, fireflies and stars, rain decorating gravestones. Her skin is smooth and somehow unscarred, her muscles toned, body slender; and her soul underneath, wild and ferocious, tame only when cupped in Blake’s hands. Her lips are red and swollen, hair spread out messily behind her, shaking subtly. 

“Please,” she says again, husky and uneven and entirely irresistible, and Blake obeys.

\--

Yang isn’t loud like Blake thought she’d be, instead breathy, rasping, low; moans flutter in her throat, die, and Blake replaces her tongue with her fingers, moving up to kiss her again, swallowing every sound. 

You’re mine, Blake can’t stop herself from thinking, fingers curling. Yang lets out a gasp, hands fisting around her sheets, and Blake kisses her on an inhale, feels her body shudder, back curving, ribs pressing through her skin. Mine, not like an object, but like a vine, a tree, a flower. Something that grows.

Yang rests on her back, panting, arm flung over her face; the air is hot and Blake’s mouth tastes sweet, salty. She expects a type of uncertainty from Yang, a hesitancy, but Yang only smiles wickedly and rolls over, pressing a thumb roughly against the indent of Blake’s hip, a spot she hadn’t even known she was sensitive to. Blake moans from the surprise of it, nails digging into Yang’s shoulder blade, resisting the urge to force her hand exactly where she needs it to go. 

“Hm,” Yang says darkly, eyes smoldering like a flashfire. “I think I’ll figure it out.” 

\--

 _Fuck_ , Yang says after, again and again and again, head resting on her arms. _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._

Blake mirrors the sentiment, managing only a noise of agreement, stretched out under the sheets with one knee bent, hands overhead. The doors to the balcony are still open, cool breeze drifting over the room Blake’s convinced isn’t entirely natural. 

“This isn’t _exactly_ how I thought the night would go,” Yang mumbles, “but I can’t say I’m disappointed.” 

“Oh, did you enjoy yourself?” Blake asks, still managing to be snarky despite her exhaustion. “I couldn’t tell.” 

“Shut up,” Yang says, mouth half-curled into a careless smirk. “ _You_ started this.” 

Blake looks at her again, the curve of her jaw, the line of her spine, the way she blinks slowly, lazily, and says, “You’re just so fucking _hot_ when you talk like that.” She skims her fingers over Yang’s side, the faint dent of each rib. “I mean, you’re hot all the time, but - when you get all forceful, authoritative - all I can think about is getting you underneath me.” 

“Wait, is that it?” Yang asks, eyes suddenly bright, tone entertained. “I knew you had, like, a power kink, but--” she rolls over onto her back, snickering. “It’s _control_ of power, isn’t it? Not power itself. That’s what gets you off.” 

Blake smirks, knots her fingers in Yang’s hair, tugging her head back and exposing her neck just slightly, just enough for the thrill of it. Yang’s breath stops itself in her throat, the barest whimper coming out in its place. Blake murmurs, “Yes,” and presses her mouth to Yang’s pulse point again, lips parting. “You’re the most powerful person in the world, and you only listen to _me._ ” Her tongue sweeps over Yang’s skin, Yang trembling underneath her, fingers grasping back at her sheets. “Of course that turns me on.” 

“I don’t,” Yang argues breathily. “I can do whatever I want.” 

Yang feels the lightest brush of teeth, the impending action making itself clear. Blake’s hand trails achingly slowly down her chest, her stomach, her hips. She grinds against Blake’s fingers automatically, unable to stop herself. 

“Not when I’m touching you,” Blake murmurs, and Yang doesn’t have a response to that.

\--

“Blake Belladonna,” Neptune says upon her arrival home the next morning, drinking coffee at their kitchen island. “The one woman I never thought I’d see doing the walk of shame. Look at you. You’re a damn mess.” 

Blake smirks broadly, not bothered at all by the observation. “I’d _hardly_ call this a walk of shame,” she says. “More like a walk of victory.” 

“Oh, what a power move,” Neptune says, and his eyes dart briefly up, a thought striking him. “I like that. Can I use that in my book?” 

“Do whatever you want,” she says, blissfully dismissive.

He picks up on the tone easily, grins. “So the sex was _that_ good, huh?” 

She stops before her room, turns to him, entirely straight-faced. “Neptune,” she tells him seriously, “the sex was _so_ good that at this current moment in time, I literally don’t care about anything else. The sex was so good that I actually forgot my entire identity at one point, like my brain deleted itself or something. It was so good that I thought about never going back to Menagerie ever again, because it _just_ isn’t worth it if I’m gonna be missing out on _that_.” 

Sun pokes his head out from his doorway down the hall, laughing, towel hanging around his neck. “She really did a number on you,” he says, unable to contain his amusement. “God, you’re like, on another planet right now.” 

“I am,” she says, opening her door. “And I think I’m gonna stay there.”

\--

Spring blooms a little earlier, a little more colorful than ever before - or so the cashier at the grocery store tells her casually, demeanor uplifted by the beautiful weather, the ever-present scent of rosemary, honey. “It’s so wonderful,” she says, bagging Blake’s items and staring idly out the window. “A bit strange for this amount of growth so soon in the season, but I’m not complaining.”

“How long have you lived here?” Blake asks her, her own heart flying high at the unexpected information.

“Oh, twenty years, at least,” she says fondly. “It’s always been beautiful here, no matter the time of year, but recently - I can’t put my finger on it. It all just seems to be _brighter._ ” 

Blake takes her bag but doesn’t go, follows her gaze out the window. 

“Any guesses as to why?” she asks candidly. 

“A few,” the woman says, eyes twinkling; “perhaps the Spring Maiden’s in an unusually good mood,” but she laughs in a way that suggests it should be shared, like the charming possibility of a joke.

“Oh, I think she might be,” Blake only agrees, turning away with a smile.

\--

Unfortunately, duty takes precedence over personal disagreements, and Yang finds herself high on the mountain in Haven, Ruby standing in between her and Weiss like a barrier, a shield. One of its many waterfalls trickles down from crevices of rock beside them, and behind sits the mouth of an unnatural-appearing cave. Below come the angry yells of a mob, clashing in the streets, soldiers heavily armed and standing guard. 

“What are you going to do?” Weiss asks, wrinkling her nose, disgusted at the state of affairs. “This _can’t_ continue _._ ”

“No,” Ruby agrees, sighing; she isn’t worn-down, but emphatic, resolved. “I’ve given him and the board plenty of chances to change, too. I wish they would’ve taken them.” 

“You’re too nice,” Yang says, sitting with her legs hanging over the edge. She kicks a foot idly against the cliff wall, watching the unfolding. “Sometimes people are just selfish.” 

“I like to believe people can change,” Ruby says, but shrugs as if it’s now beyond debate. “Well. He’s about to get what’s coming to him. Give it another week or so.” 

“Oh, that long?” Weiss says, surprised. She crosses her arms, tilting her head in examination.

Roby nods affirmatively. “It’ll take them a little while longer to blow into a full riot, mobilize enough people,” she explains. “So, be on guard.” 

“Tell that to Yang,” Weiss says haughtily. “She’s been less than dependable as of late.”

“Tell _Weiss_ to shut the fuck up,” Yang counters back, “as I’ve been around every time _you_ or _Pyrrha_ needed me.” 

Weiss makes an outraged noise in her throat, turning past Ruby, who holds out an arm to stop her. “Weiss,” she says tiredly, “just apologize.” 

“ _Excuse_ me?” 

“You’ve been wanting to for like, weeks,” Ruby points out, and Weiss flushes, torn between anger and shame. “You _know_ you were wrong. Just say you’re sorry.” 

The tension builds with the noise below, Weiss’s posture strong and unflinching; but her eyes dart between Yang’s slumped shoulders and Ruby’s pleading look, and slowly, slowly, she softens. 

Ruby drops her arm, sensing the alteration. Weiss steps around her, lowers herself to the ground beside Yang, and lets out a small exhale. “Look,” she says shortly, “I shouldn’t have snapped that night. I shouldn’t have said what I did. Not to use this as an excuse, but I’ve just - I’ve been so _exhausted,_ and I worry about you.” Her voice quiets noticeably, fills itself with a reluctant gentleness. “I worry about you more than I worry about anyone.” 

_That_ sentiment surprises Yang more than anything else. “Why?”

“Because you’re lonely,” Weiss replies straightforwardly, though not meanly. “You’ve always been lonely. And I suppose - when you told us you were seeing someone, and she wasn’t...it wasn’t _her_...I thought you’d finally given up.” 

The reasoning actually makes _sense_ , which annoys Yang _more_ for a brief moment only because it means she can’t stay mad. She sighs, wraps an arm around Weiss’s shoulders, pulling her in for a half-hearted hug. “I get where you’re coming from,” Yang answers slowly, words forming vaguely, “but it’s really...it’s not...it’s not _like_ that. Whatever you’re thinking, whatever you’re worried about, I _swear_ this isn’t that.” 

“Promise?” 

“Promise.”

“And you’re really happy?” 

“Yeah,” Yang says, and nobody can argue the genuity of her smile. “I am.” 

\--

Blake sneaks Yang in through her window one late afternoon the next day, not wanting to deal with Sun and Neptune’s enthusiasm, their teasing, their energy. Yang hoists herself through effortlessly, settling cross-legged on Blake’s bed, but their eyes meet and the exhaustion rests heavily in her smile, though it still manages to be authentic. Her hair’s in that same loose braid she often styles when she’s too fatigued to do anything else, and Blake brushes her bangs away from her forehead, concerned. 

“You okay?” she asks, stare worrying. “You seem...”

“Yeah,” Yang says, scooting forward; she drops her chin to Blake’s shoulder, arms looping around her waist. “Just...tired. Extremely tired.” 

Blake scratches her nails comfortingly against the back of her head, her neck. “You should sleep.” 

“Probably,” Yang says, yawning immediately after. “But I didn’t want to be alone.”

Blake rolls her eyes, pulls away, and lays back against her pillows; she gestures Yang to lie down with her, spreading out an arm. “C’mere.” 

“Really?” Yang asks. “Isn’t it boring if I come over and just pass out?” 

“No,” Blake answers shortly. “I’m more concerned for your well-being than my entertainment.” 

“I’m not gonna _die,_ ” Yang points out, but does as she’s told, stretching out against Blake’s side, head on her shoulder. She wiggles, adjusts a little uncomfortably, and Blake makes a noise of protest in her throat. 

“Take your jeans off,” she says, sounding mildly exasperated, and Yang grins. “I _know_ they’re annoying to sleep in.” 

“You could always _make_ me--”

Blake smacks the back of her head lightly. “I like to have sex with girls who are awake, thanks,” she responds dryly, and Yang laughs, kicking her jeans off and onto the floor. She curls up again, one leg tossed over Blake’s thigh, intertwined; Blake tugs a spare blanket up over them, and Yang nuzzles closer, sighing. 

“Well,” she murmurs, “have sex with me when I’m awake, then.” 

“Sure, babe.” 

She can feel Yang’s mouth curving against her shoulder. “I like it when you call me that.” 

Blake turns, presses her lips to the crown of Yang’s head gently, fingers stroking her arm. She reaches for her book with her other hand, propping it against her bent knee, continuing where she left off, and Yang’s breathing evens out within minutes, her body sinking tensionless into Blake’s. Like water. Like it’s her own skin, her own heart, her own bone.

After half an hour, she’s too distracted by the sun dripping through her curtains, painting geometric patterns of light across Yang’s cheek, highlighting the gold of her hair. Blake dog-ears her page, puts her book to the side, watches, indulges in the way it aches. How her soul feels as if it’s taking up the appropriate amount of space, mollified, settled. As if it’s finally done running away from the rest of her.

She texts Sun in the next room - _I can’t get up but can you please bring me a water -_ and Sun only sends her an eye-rolling emoji. _Thanks,_ she texts back, _also please be quiet when you enter._

He knocks on the door once a moment later to alert her, and enters with a playful grin across his face, like he’d been about to tease her for having broken legs or something; he makes is two steps into the room before he pauses, the scene finally dawning on him. Yang remains blissfully asleep, her arm now resting on Blake’s chest, palm over her heart.

Sun furrows his brow, releases it, observing them automatically. She wonders what he sees, looking at them, wonders if he feels the way the room breathes, pulses. Wonders if he notices the way her heart flips around her chest like a fish already caught.

He sets the bottle down on her nightstand, meets her eyes and smiles quietly. “Belladonna,” he whispers, “you sure are _screwed._ ” 

“I know,” she answers aloud only when he leaves.

\--

She trails the tips of her fingers over Yang’s cheekbone, jawline, over her neck; she slips her hand underneath her shirt, touches her collarbone, traces a line down the center of her chest, her stomach. Yang doesn’t stir noticeably, but her breathing picks up just slightly, eyelashes fluttering. 

“That feels good,” she murmurs, and so Blake continues, thumb dipping under the waistband of her underwear and across the indent of her hip, pressing against the bone. Yang shifts, crooks her knee up, making space; she swallows, doesn’t open her eyes. 

She tilts her head up, and Blake knows what she wants without her having to ask for it; Blake leans in the slightest amount, their lips grazing, too detached for a kiss and more sensual than a tease. Yang catches an inhale, waiting, Blake’s fingers moving lower, skimming the insides of her thighs. 

“Please,” she whispers, toes curling. 

Blake kisses her open-mouthed, tongue brushing against hers so slowly she feels it burn low in her navel, tightening without relief for every caress. She mostly keeps her hands where they are, one gripping Blake’s pillow and the other loosely threaded through her hair, palm against her neck. She whimpers against Blake’s lips, shifts her hips uncomfortably, expectantly.

“ _Please,_ ” Yang whispers again, more fervently, and Blake slips her fingers down, covering Yang’s mouth with her other hand. Yang strains up against her palm, tilting her neck, the action unexpected, sexy.

“You’re already so quiet,” Blake says lowly, lips set in a cruel smirk, “but I’d rather not take any chances.”

\--

Yang develops the habit of taking her out spontaneously, dragging her through trees to mountaintops and villages and seaside ports, waterfalls in deep forests, beaches of pink and black sands, caves that glitter in gold. Blake’s glad she’s already attached to nature, already appreciative of its beauty enough that any new sight fuels her even further. Yang watches her react with a half-smile, like whatever sits before them is gorgeous but not in comparison to her. 

Yang guides her around an ancient ruined city called Shor on a particularly memorable Monday afternoon - nobody else will be around, she reasons, and it’s best absorbed in peace - and Blake finds herself stunned at the magnitude, old stone towers crumbling high, lower walls covered in moss, preserved artifacts littered about, displayed. The city sits beside a large lake, eerily still, dark and calm. Yang leads her off-trail to a ruin that looks even _older,_ stone redder as if rusted, but more intact than anything else; part of the ceiling over a portion of it somehow is still holding strong. Other sides see the shattered walls, and only the foundation remains, creating a small maze through the grass.

“Is this magical, too?” Blake asks curiously, resting a hand against the rock; it’s strangely warm beneath her palm. Her ears stand up straight, not on edge, but alert, aware.

“I don’t think so,” Yang says idly. “I mean, most old things sort of feel that way anyway, because magic used to be so common, but I don’t get like, a sense that - like it’s not like the island. It’s more like…” she steps up, places her hand over Blake’s against the stone, fingers falling between hers. “...Like a concentration. Like whatever magic was here was here so often that it settled into everything around it.” 

“Hm.” Blake links their fingers, drops her arm, taking Yang’s with her. “What _does_ it feel like?” 

“What?” 

“Magic.” 

Yang pauses behind her, and Blake turns her head to catch her eyes, startled to find a muted sort of bittersweetness in them. She says quietly, “Maybe I can show you.” 

She steps back slightly, kneels down, gestures for Blake to do the same; she intertwines their fingers in a similar way they’d been against the wall, pressing Blake’s palm against the dirt in front of them.

“Spread your fingers,” she murmurs. “Relax.”

Blake focuses her stare on the ground, mind cataloguing the details, the heat rolling off of Yang’s body beside her, the way the hair on the back of her neck stands on end, her eyes pricking up. The way she swears she can hear her blood rushing like water, Yang’s heart a boat beating against the shore. Her nerves buzz, rubbing together, and something in Yang reaches out, takes hold of her soul.

A green stem pokes up through the dirt, grows, grows, unfolding; it’s the same kind of lily Yang had first grown for her over a month ago, petals white with purple splashed against their insides like watercolors. Something about it shimmers, glows; it stands out against the landscape, bright and pure. 

She breathes for what feels like the first time as the flower fully blooms; energy dissipates from her skin, if it’d ever really been there to begin with, goosebumps fading, ears no longer stiff. They don’t pick it, allow the roots to dig into the earth. Yang stands, helps her up unsteadily. 

“What’d you feel?” she asks, voice low and hoarse. 

Blake blinks against the dampness of her eyes, waiting for it to pass. “Sad,” she says blankly, discordant, and then: “I miss you.” 

It slips out of her mouth before she can stop it, and she doesn’t know what it means, doesn’t know what’s prompted her, but Yang only smiles like her heart is breaking, or fitting its pieces sloppily back together. 

Yang tugs on her fingers, pulls her close, and kisses her home.

\--

They don’t bring it up after, as if they leave it in the ruins, let it rest like an open grave. Stay, she tells Yang softly, stay with me tonight, and so she does, wrapping Blake up in her arms underneath the sheets. When Blake sleeps, she dreams of landslides, explosions going off like bombs, a city caving in on itself. She’s holding Yang’s hand, watching the destruction of it all, and instead of despair in Yang’s eyes she finds resolve. 

She wakes up, Yang still holding her loosely, room awash in dim moonlight. She barely remembers the dream at all. 

\--

“I want to go with you,” Blake says to her a few nights later as Yang’s preparing to make a quick round of the kingdom, situated next to the same large tree she normally uses. Yang looks over at her, raising her eyebrows. 

“Really?” she asks dubiously. “It might be boring. It’s usually boring.” 

“That doesn’t bother me,” Blake says. “I’m never bored with you.” 

Yang grins cutely, ruffles a hand against the top of her head, right between her ears. Blake frowns in mock irritation. “That’s cute,” Yang teases. “You like, _like_ me.” 

“You’re so stupid.” 

“Hey,” Yang says seriously, resting a hand against the bark, “I’m a big deal, or whatever.” 

“How convincing,” Blake replies dryly, and Yang laughs, the wood extending inward. 

She gestures dramatically, half-bows. “After you,” she says, and Blake only rolls her eyes, moving forward. It’s still a little disconcerting, even after all of this time, the novelty never quite wearing off.

“How do you know where to go?” Blake asks, emerging from the other side into what looks like the outskirts of a farm. 

“I’m psychic,” Yang replies, playfully omniscient air about her. 

“Oh, yeah?” Blake grins. “Read my mind.” 

Yang throws her a flirtatious look, the wood sealing itself up behind them. “Baby,” she says blithely, “I don’t need to be psychic to know what _you’re_ thinking.” 

Blake sighs, trails her to the edge of the field. “You make me sound like some sex addict or something.” 

“No,” Yang disagrees. “It’s just me. You can’t keep your hands off me.” 

“I’m keeping them off you _now._ ” 

“Yeah, but you weren’t, like, twenty minutes before we left--” 

“Fine,” Blake agrees cheerfully. “Consider me hands-off all night. I won’t touch you even if you beg me to, which I’m _sure_ you will.” 

Yang flushes, but her eyes gleam red a moment later, and she turns, stopping. “Really?” she murmurs dangerously. “Even if I ask _really_ nicely?” 

“No,” Blake says, swallowing once. “I won’t.”

Yang smiles with her teeth, leans in. “Please?” she says breathily, and it only strengthens Blake’s resolve, her own smirk tightening. 

“No,” she says cooly, and Yang grins wider, irises fading back to their normal color. 

“Anyway,” she says, and continues on like nothing had happened, following a path along the wheat. A large farmhouse sits in the distance, but it seems to be the only property for miles. “I have a general parameter I stick to, usually Grimm hotspots - Qrow sweeps it during the day, tells me if anything needs attention, and if not, I do quick stops here and there anyway. Like when you met me in Forever Fall - Qrow had alerted me to it earlier that morning.” 

“And how does _he_ know?” 

“He can turn into a bird,” Yang tells her, and for once she isn’t kidding. “A crow, actually, thus his name. My mother can do the same thing, but as a raven,” she adds almost bitterly. Off Blake’s stunned look, she says, “I told you! Magic _does_ still exist. But in smaller forms.” 

“Except for you,” Blake says, watching her glance around the land with narrow, shrewd eyes. 

“Except for me,” she agrees, stare focusing towards the treeline, and in the distance Blake hears the howl of dying Grimm.

\--

They’ve almost finished Yang’s rounds, deep in the forests off of Mountain Glen, when she gets the text from Ruby. It’d been mostly calm until then, more of a field trip for Blake, who’d watched her occasionally slaughter Grimm seemingly just by blinking.

 _THREAT LEVEL 8,_ it reads. _NOW._

“Shit,” Yang breathes out, staring at her scroll. “Oh, shit. Okay.” She glances up at Blake, whose expression seeps confusion. 

“What?” she asks, alarmed. 

Yang can’t stop to think twice about it, taking Blake’s hand and pressing her other to the tree closest to them. “I have to go to Haven,” she explains hurriedly, wood splitting itself. “There’s an emergency. And I don’t have time to take you home, so--” she breaks off, guiding Blake into the tunnel. “You’re coming with me.”

“And that’s - okay?” Blake asks uncertainly, trailing quickly behind. 

“You’ll be fine,” Yang assures her, misinterpreting her tone. “I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.” 

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Blake says as they step out onto a cliff, and stops immediately, stunned.

They’re standing opposite what looks like a vertical city built into cliffsides, and it’s burning. Blake’s never been to Haven but she’s seen it pictures, and the jarring nature of the landscape now makes the connection harder for her to link. Smoke rises from buildings on the opposing mountain, waterfall a hue of orange, soaking up the flames. The sky is a dark, sickly shade of purple-grey, and screams echo out from below, yells, chants, war. 

Yang stands tall, strong, eyes focused on the scene in front, below. Ruby texts her again, and she pulls out her scroll to see _I HAVE INNER CITY, TAKE THE PLAINS. PYRRHA ALSO THERE._

She says, “Don’t leave my side unless I tell you to,” and turns again, pulling Blake back through the doorway of the tree they came, though the other end now speaks a different picture entirely. 

It’s a lightly-forested, wide, flat area; the first thing Blake sees is a woman, her bright red hair pulled back into a ponytail and bright against the dark landscape; she turns back like she’s sensed them, expression hard and stoic. She’s seen photos from Yang and instantly recognizes her as Pyrrha, and distantly wonders if beauty runs as a defining trait of the Maidens; she’s also gorgeous, though not exactly Blake’s type.

Her eyebrows raise in surprise when she catches Blake behind Yang, but seems to intuitively understand. “You were out?” she asks. 

“Yeah,” Yang answers, grimacing. “I didn’t have time.” 

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Pyrrha says, her gaze narrowing back to the distant hills. “Sorry for the rudeness, Blake, but--”

“It isn’t the time for introductions,” Blake says, shivering nervously as she glances around; it’s empty but it’s heavy, like the weight of anguish sits in the air. Yang squeezes her fingers once, slightly shifting her body in front of Blake’s.

“We have to protect the farmland,” Pyrrha says determinedly, jerking her head behind her. “Haven won’t be able to survive a revolution if their resources are decimated in the process.” 

“Take the sky,” Yang says, processing information Blake doesn’t even know exists. “You’re a better shot. What’s Mistral’s biggest threat?” 

“Geists,” Pyrrha says. “Nuckleeves - they’re usually solitary and rare, but with the chaos of the city, I’d expect to see at least one.” 

Yang smiles, black and dangerous. “Sounds like fun,” she says, and Blake doesn’t have to meet her eyes to know they’re glittering red in the darkness. 

A low rumble shakes through them, like an earthquake, like the warning sign of danger; Blake presses closer to her without conscious thought, instinctual. She’s not afraid, though; she’s anticipatory, charged, almost eager, as if she knows what’s about to happen without ever having faced it. 

Pyrrha moves before Yang does, cranking back her arm as a spear forms one layer at a time in her hand, and in the distance Blake makes out the vague shape of a large bird descending over the skyline, masses of shapes trailing behind it--

There’s a spark of light as Pyrrha’s aim apparently makes target, skewering the creature straight through the skull; its large wings flap once, twice, and it sinks on a decline, body falling limp, and a loud crack echoes out a moment later upon impact with the ground. Blake turns back to Pyrrha, but finds her gone, and Yang shifts her stance the barest inch, gaze centered on the treeline far-off.

“There,” Yang whispers quietly. “Do you see it?” 

If Blake didn’t have perfect vision in the dark, she’d never have noticed it until it was too late. 

It’s a large, grotesquely twisted creature, its long arms trailing against the ground as the monster it sits upon takes slow, ambling steps forward, searching for a target. Horns protrude from its head, its misshapen mouth stitched shut, eyes gleaming. Hundreds of eyes, peering out from behind it, and then they’re running. 

“Don’t move,” Yang says again, and waits. 

They run closer, closer, skittering out from the distant trees, galloping across the clearing, and Yang sweeps an arm around in front of her, fire suddenly springing up around the entire perimeter, like the trail of a match lighting gas. She’s carving out a battlefield, Blake realizes, staring at its boundaries; the fire doesn’t spread, just burns itself through over and over, and it doesn’t appear to be damaging the greenery around it. 

She seems to be _toying_ with them, that’s the first thing Blake notices. Like she gets a sickly sort of pleasure out of their slaughter. Pyrrha had been so serious about it, on edge, but Yang is almost careless as she strikes them, imploding them, igniting them, impaling them. Blake watches her create a barrier somehow, a wall, watches the Grimm slam against it in a pile, watches a thin, sharp, metallic stalagmite shoot up from below them, skewering them one after the other. Blake watches them combust, watches a pressure balloon them from the inside out, watches her rip them apart with a palpable satisfaction. Blake watches Yang let one run straight up to her just for the gratification of crumpling its skull in her bare hands and tries not to moan. Blake watches them die and thinks about revenge, though for what, she isn’t sure.

The rider and its horse finally reach them, those long arms twitching madly, hideously, and raises them to the sky--

\--only for its hands to suddenly convulse inward, wrapping around its own throat, and Yang smiles with her teeth, her power only building, rolling out of her like a bomb. She turns to Blake as if waiting for permission, and Blake nods. 

The hands jerk forcefully upward, tearing its own head clean off, the front legs of the creature collapse, body slowly stilling and dissipating.

Something about it is so animalistic, so ancient and brutal and familiar, like there was a time before when Yang used to smile at her and wait for a _yes,_ like there was a time after when she couldn’t be controlled at all.

But the Grimm don’t stop coming, like flood and flames and the deepness of space descending down upon them. 

“I’ve had enough,” Yang says, sounding like her own echo, and steps away from her, kneeling down with one hand splayed against the grass; for a moment, there is nothing except the oncoming onslaught, no movement, no breath.

The ground cracks suddenly, extending from the tips of Yang’s fingers pressed against the earth, like cutting smoothly down a seam rather than fracturing; it extends as far as Blake can see, hundreds of feet, a solid, bold line in the grass, and then nothing. 

It just sits there, resting like someone’s brush stroke, unmoving and still; the entire landscape grows eerily quiet, despite the hundreds of Grimm currently rushing them from the other end, paws pounding, howls echoing, and Yang closes her eyes. 

The earth caves in like a crater, drawing everything it touches down and down into blackness at least a mile wide, but it’s the strangest sight Blake has seen thus far: nothing on land shifts at all, trees perfectly frozen, roots untouched, grass standing up. It’s like the ground condenses itself to make room for the abyss below, like Yang’s preserving it in time, in wax, in glass.

Grimm dig their claws into the sides, but something seems to be dragging them down, an invisible force, a powerful entity with too many eager hands and gaping mouths. Blake can hear the way they pant, the crack of their bones as they break, their unsettling howls and groans and screams. 

Yang lifts her hand as the crevice closes over the noise of death, the fire patting itself out, and then there is silence.

\--

A man quivers in the center of an elaborately decorated hallway, ostentatious and bold, an exact opposition of the scene set around him. Outside and below echo the yells and screams of the city in turmoil, collapsing in on itself in strength.

“Please,” he pleads, on his knees, fingers clasped. His tail whips nervously behind him. “Please, Ruby. I’m begging your forgiveness.”

She stands tall in front of him, hovering above the floor, like walking on an invisible platform. “Cowardice,” she says quietly, “is something I don’t forgive. Not when it’s at the expense of others.” 

“Please,” he whimpers, “please, have mercy--”

“I’ve been merciful,” Ruby says, and raises a hand in a swift motion, tightening her fingers into a fist. There’s a jut of an earthquake, a stone wall shooting up behind him, blocking the doorway at the end of the hallway. “I gave you chance after chance. I played my part. It’s time for you to play yours.”

“Please,” he begs again, horrified, the ground rumbling. The entryway doors smash open, makeshift army forcing their way inside. His face goes slack from terror, legs trembling. 

“Face your fate,” Ruby says, and then she is gone.

\--

Pyrrha collapses next to them, sprawling back against the grass and panting. Yang glances concernedly at her. “You okay?” she asks. 

“Just a break,” she breathes out, staring at the empty sky. “I don’t know _how_ you do it, Yang.” 

“We all have our strengths,” Yang replies vaguely, and Blake raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment.

Pyrrha sits up as if she’d forgotten something and angles her body, extending a hand to Blake. “Sorry, by the way,” she says, smiling warmly. “I’m Pyrrha.” 

“Blake,” she replies, shaking her hand, mirroring her smile. “It’s nice to meet you.” 

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Pyrrha says coyly, tone suggestive, and Yang flushes automatically. 

“Okay, you can stop there,” Yang cuts her off. “Blake already knows I’m obsessed with her. We don’t have to do this.”

Blake laughs. “It’s true,” she says, “but I’m open to testimony.”

“Oh my God, no.” 

Pyrrha crooks an eyebrow listening to them talk, her expression flashing strangely for a second, but it’s gone so fast Blake thinks she must have imagined it entirely. She unsteadily gets to her feet, Yang reaching out to support her by the elbow automatically. 

“I see you’ve managed your duties capably,” a voice suddenly says from behind them, and Blake spins around, surprised at the lack of presence; she comes face-to-face with a white-haired girl who she instantly recognizes as Weiss. “Though with some unexpected company,” she adds, lip curling at the sight of Blake, but it seems more uncertain than cruel. 

“I was on a date,” Yang supplies half-heartedly, uncaring. 

“Woah, is this _the_ Blake?!” another voice calls out, though Blake can’t see the source, glancing around awkwardly. Weiss only rolls her eyes and sighs, arching her neck back.

“Ruby,” she calls, “will you _please_ get down from there?” 

Blake looks up, brain momentarily pausing as she tries to comprehend the sight of a girl sitting cross-legged on a low-hanging cloud, staring at them. She straightens, slips off the mist and lands on steadily beside Weiss, large grin on her face. 

“Wow,” she says, taking Blake’s hand and shaking it as if meeting a celebrity, “I’ve heard _so_ much about you. This is crazy! I didn’t think you’d be _here,_ of all places! Oh, I’m Ruby, and this is Weiss.” 

“I think we can all agree with that,” Weiss says, though her tone lacks bite. She seems reluctantly curious more than anything, examining Blake subtly. “Hello.”

“We were on a date!” Yang justifies again. “I didn’t have a choice! Trust me, this _isn’t_ how I wanted you all to meet for the first time.” 

“Well, it’s great, honestly,” Ruby says enthusiastically. “And it looks great out here! You guys did an awesome job.” 

“Oh,” Yang says, as if remembering something; she turns, lifts an arm sharply, fist clenched, and there’s a shift in the earth, a large wall raising in the distance and extending for as far as Blake can see. “Keep that in place for a few days until the city calms down. _Only_ a few days, though, or it’ll affect their trade routes.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Ruby waves away. “It’s almost over, anyway.”

“The council?” Pyrrha asks. 

“Dead,” Weiss says cooly. “They couldn’t defend themselves.” 

“They made their choice,” Ruby says, sounding suddenly darker, older. “This could have been avoided. But I have to support the people.” 

Weiss puts a hand comfortingly on her shoulder. “We know.” 

“Well, we should get back,” Ruby says, cheering back to her normal self. Pyrrha stretches her arms, cracking her back, rolling her neck. “Weiss is gonna stay, so you two can head home. I’ll send you an update in the morning. We’ll walk you to your tree or whatever.” 

“It’s a normal way to travel,” Yang defends, and Blake gets the sense that this is something of an inside joke. “We can’t all storm walk or whatever the hell you do--” 

Ruby laughs loudly, and Pyrrha even giggles at the description. “Okay, whatever.” She links her arm suddenly through Blake’s, dragging her forward. “So, tell me all the embarrassing shit about Yang,” she stage-whispers. “Like, she’s wrapped around your finger, right?” 

“Oh my _God,_ ” Yang says again. 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Ruby says, grinning back, and pulls her away playfully, continuing to inundate her with harmless questions.

“Sorry we had to interrupt your date,” Pyrrha teases under her breath as the three of them traipse ahead. “Good thing you weren’t in the middle of something _else…_ ”

“Don’t worry about that _something else_ ,” Yang murmurs out of the corner of her mouth. “I’m about to get seriously laid.” 

“Not if you keep advertising it,” Blake says cheerfully from ahead of them, one ear twitching back. 

“Oh, shit.” 

Pyrrha laughs, shoves her shoulder jokingly. “ _Smooth,_ ” she says.

“You should see me when I’m _really_ trying,” Yang retorts. “Blake, tell her how I got your number.”

“No.”

“It was like, the definition of smooth,” Yang continues, unfazed. “You would’ve been impressed.”

“I believe you,” Pyrrha says, stifling a laugh. “You idiot.” 

Yang grins as they catch up to the other three at a tree, and Ruby pulls her in for a hug, murmuring something into her ear that makes Yang roll her eyes; Weiss remains unreadable. Blake finds herself standing comfortably beside Pyrrha, waiting for the culmination of goodbyes; sisters, she thinks fondly, as Yang wrestles Ruby into a large bearhug.

“You know,” Pyrrha says quietly as the other three are preoccupied - _please,_ Weiss’s voice calls exasperatedly - “I’ve never seen Yang fight like that.” 

The information catches Blake off-guard even more than the battle itself. “Really?” 

Pyrrha nods in affirmation. “Yes,” she says, voice still low. “I couldn’t do half of what she just did - it’d drain me completely. So I’m betting...you being here may have had something to do with it.” 

“Ready?” Yang’s voice calls out, and Blake nods, steps over to her; Pyrrha tosses her a wink. 

“We’ll have to hang out soon,” Ruby says energetically as Yang places her hand against the bark. “It was _great_ to meet you.” 

“You, too,” Blake says sincerely, charmed, and Yang slips her fingers through hers. “Weiss, it was nice meeting you as well.” 

Weiss only nods, but manages a small smile.

“See you around,” Yang says, throwing up two fingers in a half-wave, half-salute. 

Weiss holds out a hand, stopping them before they can walk off. “We _should_ get together,” she says, surprising everyone except Blake, who doesn’t know her well enough to expect any kind of behavior. “I’d like to...get to know you, Blake.” 

“Okay,” Blake says, too taken aback to say anything else. 

Yang raises her eyebrows mildly, but shrugs in mild agreement. “Sure,” she says, and they start to walk again. “Text me.” 

The last thing Blake catches upon looking back are the three of them staring at her with equally puzzled expressions on their faces.

\--

It felt so _good,_ Yang says later, curled against her; it felt so _good_ to have you there. Like I was proving something to you. Like I was doing you justice, somehow. 

It was strange, Blake says slowly. Like I’d met them all before. Like in a dream.

\--

Ruby sends her a thumbs-up emoji the next morning, when she’s lying sprawled out across Sun and Neptune’s couch as Blake scrambles eggs in a pan over the stove. It’s just after ten and they’d gotten a late start to the day - _though earned_ , Blake had said, stretching in bed - and it’s enough that they’re in the grace period between when Neptune actually wakes up and when Sun returns from his early workout. 

The front door opens; she’s in the middle of typing a text back when a damp towel is thrown across her face, and Sun’s voice cheekily calls out, “Lazing around again, Xiao Long?” 

She chucks it back at him, laughing despite the foulness of the action. “ _Gross,_ ” she says, kicking her foot against his lower back as he walks by, grinning at her, towel now around his neck. “Wear deodoerant, loser.” 

He grabs her ankle before she can shove him again and tugs, dragging her halfway down the couch towards him. She lets her scroll fall to the side, goes to whack his arm away, which he deflects; she gets a good grip on his wrist with her other, pulling him down against the cushions, and works on wrangling him into a headlock. Blake glances over at them smacking each other and rolls her eyes, internally finding the sight endearing.

“Please don’t wrestle in the house,” Neptune says, emerging from the bedroom at last, bleary-eyed and yawning as he pads down the hallway. Sun looks up from where he’s pinned against Yang’s side, her arm wrapped around his head; Yang releases him immediately, and he loses his balance, falling to the ground.

“We didn’t break anything,” she assures him, still resting on her knees on the cushions.

“ _Yet,_ ” Neptune teases, grinning. “The two of you are like tornadoes when you fight. Especially _you_ , Yang - I’m like, genuinely afraid you’ll accidentally create something like that one of these days.”

“He interned for a meteorologist once,” Sun says seriously. “He knows his weather.” 

“Don’t get me started on _you,_ ” Neptune says. “You’re used to a studio, not a living room. You’re just as bad.”

“I _could_ create tornadoes,” Yang emphasizes, “but I _don’t._ ”

“Maybe we need a bigger living room,” Sun offers.

“Go outside,” Neptune says, but all Yang does is bounce over to Blake and wrap her arms around her waist, and Sun steps up and gives him a kiss, so, he knows he isn’t winning this one.

“I _did_ offer to help, by the way,” Yang says to Sun, hair still mussed and messy from their brief tussle, her face pressed against Blake’s neck. “I said I would make toast with my hands.” 

“A _very gracious_ offer which I politely declined,” Blake says dryly, pulling the hot sauce out of their cupboard. “The toaster works fine.” 

“But her doing it with magic is _way_ cooler,” Sun argues. “I want magic toast.”

“Oh, my God,” Neptune says, rubbing his eyes with his hands. “Now I really mean it. Go outside.”

\--

Blake isn’t sure why she does it. It’s just a Monday. She’s been there nearly two and a half months. The weather’s nice, but the weather’s always nice, now. 

She doesn’t know why she does it: or, that’s what she tells herself, if only to save the truth for a time when she’s set to actually process it. Maybe it’s the image of Yang and Sun drunkenly throwing pieces of their board game at each other from across the table the night before. Maybe it’s Neptune shyly asking her to edit his book a week ago, emailing her pages with a note saying _track changes._ Maybe it’s that she sees flowers bloom and she thinks of home, and it isn’t Menagerie.

She walks into the bookstore with the _help wanted_ sign, somewhat surprised and not startled at all to see it still hanging there, like it’d been waiting for her to enter. It’s a cute place, not very large but packed floor-to-ceiling; she skims some of the titles quickly and most of them she’s never heard of, some in languages she’s never seen; _Darkest Game, The First Six, Remorse of Time_. There are a few chairs for reading surrounding a table with an old chess board, and towards the back, a counter with a bell, a door half-open behind it.

She dings the bell and waits. 

“Hello?” A calm voice calls. 

“Hello?” Blake answers, peering around the frame. 

There’s the sound of rustling, and then an older man steps out from the back, a single book in his hands; he snaps it shut upon seeing her, smiling nicely, and sets it on the counter. Her eyes flick down to it automatically. _What Was Once Lost…_

“How may I assist you?” the man asks. 

Blake blinks, realizing she hadn’t planned this far, wasn’t sure what drew her to ring the bell in the first place. “Um,” she says, “I’m actually--”

“--Here for the job, of course,” he interrupts, though it doesn’t feel like an interruption and more like a direction, like he has a script he’s fulfilling, a motive. He half-smiles at her, the look in his eyes amused, knowing. “Well, it’s yours.”

“I’m sorry?” Blake asks, her voice coming out in a nervous half-giggle; she wonders if she’s being played with. Maybe the man just has an odd sense of humor. “Don’t you need - references? Experience?” It strikes her a second too late that she hadn’t even had the conscious intention of applying.

“Hm?” the man says, like the question hadn’t occurred to him. “Oh, no experience. Just someone with a passion for magic.” 

“Magic?” Blake echoes, confused by the turn of phrase.

“What else are books for, if not to imbue us with a sense of the mystical, the otherworldly, the forgotten?”

Blake holds onto her tongue, a little taken aback. “That’s an...eloquent way to put it.” She comprehends the full wording of the previous statement and chokes back a laugh. Passion for magic, well, she _definitely_ has that. 

“Is it not accurate?” 

“No,” Blake allows, “it is. I agree with you.” 

“Tell me, Blake,” he says vaguely, “do you like books? Fairytales, perhaps?”

 _Fairytales_ drops like it’s an inside joke, though they’ve never been a particular interest of hers. “I’ve always been an avid reader,” Blake says, and isn’t sure why she’s telling him any of this; she’s reminded briefly of the first time she met Yang, the way she’d revealed information like it was her right to know. “I’m from Menagerie, and I guess - it was the closest to any kind of magic I could get.” 

“Ah, I see,” he says, peeking over his glasses at her. “And now?”

“Now?” Blake repeats with a smile. “Now I feel like it follows me everywhere.”

\--

He’d asked her a few other random questions, her favorite book, her favorite stories as a child, how she felt about the town, and it hadn’t occurred to her until much later that she’d never told him her name. He’d been strange, but he’d been strange the way _Yang_ was strange, the way they all were. 

Consider this your application and interview, he’d said. Take the week. If you’re still interested, I’ll see you next Monday.

It’d been strange, Blake thinks again, like he’d known she has decisions to make. 

\--

They’re walking on the beach again, barefoot, foam splashing at their toes; Blake hates getting wet, but there’s something about holding Yang’s hand and laughing that overcomes any fear. Yang toys with the water playfully, drawing up walls of waves and holding them at bay, surrounding them, cocooning them; Blake reaches out, skims her fingers along the surface, poking through. Yang unravels it like a ribbon, letting it fall back into the sea. 

Blake peels off her shirt and shorts, leaving her in a black bikini that Yang eyes and calls sinful. Like you can talk, Blake replies, watching Yang strut around in white one, her hair in a loose braid over her shoulder. Yang only winks. There’s an easy way to fix this, babe, she insinuates and Blake almost thinks of allowing it. 

She relaxes on a towel against the sand instead, letting the sun sink into her bones while Yang wanders along the shore, collecting seaglass and seashells and rocks with colors that remind her of Blake’s eyes. She lifts up the ocean like peeking under a rug, mindlessly, as if it’s no strain on her at all. 

“Isn’t it tiring?” Blake asks her when she collapses on the towel beside her, scattering a handful of pale, smooth glass across the sand. “Using your power like that.”

“Not really,” she says, shrugging one shoulder. 

“Really?” Blake asks, surprised at the answer. “It’s tiring for everyone else, isn’t it? That’s what Pyrrha said to me after Haven.” 

Yang glances over at her, fiddling with a shell between her fingers. “It is, for them,” Yang says slowly. “But I never - I’ve never had that problem. And I - no, nevermind.”

“Oh, no,” Blake says, pegging the self-censoring; she’d been about to say something cute and embarrassing. “You _have_ to tell me, now.” 

Yang harrumps, cheeks pink, and brushes a few stray strands of hair away from her face. “I have that problem even _less_ now that you’re here,” she admits unwillingly, flushing further. “Like - like I could do anything.” 

Blake leans in, kisses her softly; Yang relaxes against her, her bashfulness fading. Blake says, “So that’s how I make you feel, huh?” and pinches Yang’s cheek teasingly. “Adorable.”

“Adorable?” Yang repeats, scooting back onto her knees. Her eyes glint at Blake, and Blake recognizes this look; it’s payback. It’s a challenge. She murmurs, “I’ll show you adorable.” 

“Oh, sorry,” Blake says, grinning at her. “What’s the word I should’ve used?” 

Yang only smirks, blinks, and her eyes flare suddenly red underneath the sunlight; the playful tilt of Blake’s mouth drops instantly, heat uncurling in the pit of her stomach. Yang steps backward slowly, one foot behind the other, and closes her eyes; her hair flutters around her face. The sea laps at her heels, but she only walks back, back, and back, stopping at her submerged ankles; the water rushes out, waves curling, and Yang extends both hands, muscles of her arms taut, fingers spread--

\--and the ocean ceases entirely, like a film put on a pause, like it’s never had a beat of its own. It sits perfectly still, not even slip of foam, not a splash; Blake glances down the shore, up again, can’t see the waves moving anywhere. Goosebumps erupt over her skin, her instincts telling her to run, her heart telling her to pin Yang down against the sand and fuck her. Yang barely moves other than to tilt her wrists up, her smirk a tangible threat.

Suddenly, her eyelids fly open, irises such a brilliant, arresting red that Blake can see them burning from where she sits on the shore. Yang raises a single hand, the ocean parting from the seafloor for at least fifty feet in either direction, floating above her head like a blanket. It’s massive, overwhelming, incomprehensible; it hangs there as if a covering of clouds, rolling in itself, waiting. Yang steps towards her.

She drops her hand, but the ocean follows, trailing overhead and behind like a pet. Yang kneels down in front of her, lifts her fingers underneath Blake’s jaw, tilting her head up. Blake’s breath is stuck in her lungs, in her throat, in her mouth, wanting Yang to kiss her, wanting to hold her down and watch her beg. 

“Terrifying,” Yang says, and the ocean settles down behind her like it’d never halted in the first place.

\--

Yang pushes her back against the towel, not gentle but not harsh, either; just enough to give Blake an out. Her mouth curls at a corner, devilish, lustful; her eyes glitter red, never changing. She knows it turns Blake on to hold her wilder side in her hands, to influence it, control it; to Blake, it’s better than lifting the entire ocean. Blake only watches, looking up from underneath hooded eyelids at Yang hovering over her, knees on either side of her hips, palms flat beside her shoulders. She leans down, brushes her lips teasingly over Blake’s, more of a caress than a kiss, waiting for direction. 

Blake lifts her arms, brings one hand to the side of her face and the other to the back of her head, fingers scratching against her scalp as they tangle in her hair. She guides Yang’s mouth back to hers, deeper, harder, teeth digging into Yang’s bottom lip, tongue sweeping over it after, and Yang moans quietly into her mouth, heat of her body washing over Blake’s skin, better than any sun. 

Yang breaks away, drops her lips in a trail from Blake’s cheek to her jawline to her neck, sucking against her pulse point, the dip in her collarbone, the line of her sternum. Yang’s straddling her now, braid falling over her shoulder, hair trailing against Blake’s stomach as she shifts down, down. Blake doesn’t stop her. 

“Blake,” Yang murmurs, breath hot against her navel. “Let me.” 

Blake fights against the automatic arch of her spine, bites down on her lip, releasing it slowly, red and swollen. “Let you what?” she asks, voice throaty, seductive. 

Yang tilts her head slightly, the vivid red of her eyes finding Blake’s from underneath her eyelashes, and Blake swears the sight alone is enough to get her off. “Please,” Yang says, dark and hot and sensual, her nails scraping lightly across Blake’s sides, fingers finding the edge of her bikini. “I know you love it when I beg.” 

“Fuck,” Blake breathes out, far too gone for anything else, crashing waves filling her head like white noise, senses narrowing to Yang’s lips trailing just above where she wants them most. 

“Please,” Yang says again, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the indent of her hip. 

Blake tugs on Yang’s hair sharply, makes her meet her gaze again. “Don’t stop until I tell you to,” Blake tells her lowly, the promise of a threat, and Yang’s smile turns carnal, wicked.

“Don’t make me stop at all,” she says, and then doesn’t speak again for a long, long time.

\--

Yang tosses a blanket over their shoulders, driftwood fire crackling in front of them, flames burning green, blue. We can’t leave before sunset, she says. I want the day. _I want every day with you_ is what goes unsaid, and Blake huddles close to her, warmth rolling from her skin.

“I know,” Yang starts, unable to drain the nervousness from her voice, “that you were only supposed to stay through spring, but - no.” Uncertainty takes over. She glances down, and then away. “Nevermind.” 

“Yang,” Blake murmurs, knowing exactly where the conversation is heading, “say it.” 

“It’s selfish.” 

“I don’t care,” Blake says. They’d never talked about it before because it’d never felt real, never felt like her leaving was something that may actually happen. She needs it to be asked of her, needs the option to be more than a concept fluttering around the corners of her mind. She needs the choice. “Say it.” 

Yang meets her eyes again, lilac irises half-masked by her eyelashes. She tugs her bottom lip briefly into her mouth and lets it go, building up her own breath. “Stay with me,” she implores softly, finally, as if the thought of Blake not being there digs too deeply for her to mask. “I know I shouldn’t ask you to uproot your life, but--” 

“What life?” Blake interrupts rhetorically, and Yang’s words break off, faltering. She thinks of Adam and his spite, his hatred, his anger, how she’d helped make him what he was before tearing it down. She thinks of being alone, being miserable, thinks of turning Ilia away, thinks of her parents and their disappointment. She thinks every horrible thing she’d left behind, every better one she’d found. “I’m happier here than I’ve ever been in Menagerie,” she admits, her hands enveloping Yang’s. “I have a life _here._ I have people who actually _want_ me around, people _I_ want to be around. It’s not selfish. I don’t want to go back there. I can’t. Not now.” 

“Are you serious?” Yang breathes out, as if she’d thought she was about to have another thing to fight for.

“Yeah,” Blake says quietly, leaning her forehead against Yang’s. “I think - I think I’ve been planning on staying for awhile, actually.”

“Since when?” 

_Since I met you._

\--

She walks in the door, puzzled, incredulous, overjoyed, wondering if her afternoon had been a fever dream or a hallucination, wondering if she’s finally lost her mind or found it again. Neptune catches the array of expressions instantly from where he’s standing in the kitchen, pouring pasta into a pot on the stove. He mimes her, as if trying to decipher their meaning through facial recreation.

“What’s up with you?” he asks, apparently failing at it. Sun glances over from where he’d been dicing onions, craning his neck to look back. 

“I think,” Blake says slowly, “that I’ve just decided to move here.” 

Sun drops his knife, spinning around, his mouth already spreading into a wide grin, teeth on display. “Seriously?” he asks excitedly. “Like, for real?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Oh my God,” Sun says, and rushes around the counter to her, picking her up in a hug. “Dude! Yes!” 

She laughs, patting him on the back as he puts her down. “Obviously I wouldn’t live _here_ forever--”

“No, take whatever time you’d need, it’s totally fine,” Sun says enthusiastically. “Right, Neptune?” 

“Of course,” he says, “but I _am_ curious - is this because of Yang?” 

“Partly,” Blake admits, raising and dropping her shoulders, “but it’s _you,_ too. I’m just - I’m _happy_ here. I have friends. I have a girlfriend. I possibly even have a job,” she adds as an afterthought, thinking of the bookstore. “Menagerie is like - it’s full of mistakes I made, and that’s it. I want something new. A life that’s _mine_.” 

Neptune nods agreeably as she speaks, and she realizes he probably understands that desire more than anyone else. “I get it,” he says, smiling at her. “Sometimes you just need change.”

“Yeah,” she says, and thinks of seasons.

\--

Hypothetical, though, he says after - _it’s the philosophy major in him,_ Sun jabs immediately - what if you and Yang break up? 

Blake only stares blankly at him, trying to decide if he’s serious or not, and then laughs as if he’s told her an incredibly hilarious joke. He raises his eyebrows. What? he asks, not seeing the humor in it.

I know this sounds crazy, Blake says, but I swear she made this world for me.

\--

Weiss actually makes the first move, something Yang doesn’t expect at all. Maybe that should’ve been her first sign. 

She calls Yang on the phone a few mornings later rather than texts, which is also slightly strange, but it’s Weiss; her rules for communication are sometimes hard to follow. “Hey,” Yang answers, flipping through the newspaper. 

“ _Hey,_ ” she answers. “ _I’m calling because I’d like to invite you and Blake to dinner tomorrow night. With Ruby and Pyrrha, of course._ ” 

“Really?” Yang asks, surprise evident. She’d sort of thought Weiss had only said it originally to be polite. 

“ _Yes,_ ” she says. “ _With things in Haven finally calming down, and Ironwood under control, I thought it’d be the perfect opportunity._ ” 

“Okay,” Yang agrees. “What time?” 

“ _Six_?” 

“Sounds good.” 

“ _Wonderful,_ ” Weiss says, and she actually sounds somewhat excited. “ _I’ll see you both then._ ” 

Yang’s so disoriented by the tone of the call that she hangs up without saying goodbye, and immediately texts, _accidentally hung up sorry but yes see you tomorrow._

\--

“Okay, so what do I need to know?” Blake asks, standing in front of her closet wearing nothing but black lace lingerie, attempting to decide on what to wear. “Like, I don’t know, are there things that may come up I should know about, or--” 

“The opposite, actually,” Yang says, stretched out on her bed, arms behind her head. “You’re not really supposed to know how we work. Like, you’re not supposed to know the boundaries of our power, or when we’re allowed to intervene, or whatever. One of the ways we’re able to keep the kingdoms in line is because we’re a constant threat - they don’t know we have rules to abide by.” 

“Makes sense,” Blake says, passively examining a dress she hasn’t had the chance to wear yet, but is possibly too revealing for a dinner party. “Anything else?” 

“Should I make you flashcards? Will that turn you on?” 

Blake laughs, throws her a dirty look over her shoulder. “ _No,_ ” she says, exasperated. “You’re so dumb.” 

“I’m _real_ smart, for your information,” Yang replies seriously. 

“I hate you.”

“I’m smart enough to know that isn’t true.” 

“How about you put this _intellect_ of yours to use and help me pick out an outfit?” Blake asks, shoving a few hangers to the side as she searches for a blouse. 

“Absolutely _not,_ ” Yang says, sounding aghast at the very idea. “And ruin _this_ view? That’d _really_ make me stupid.” 

Blake rolls her eyes, turns to face her, hands on her hips. She aims for strictness, sharpness, but Yang only smirks and crooks a finger at her, gesturing her closer. 

She drops her arms and walks over, giving in; Yang is irresistible, but never more so than when she’s lying in Blake’s bed, barely clothed and looking like every synonym for sex.

“We’re going to be late,” Blake murmurs, straddling her hips; Yang only smirks wider, her hands trailing up Blake’s sides, over her ribs, low on her back. “I still don’t know what to wear.”

“So we’ll be late,” Yang says, bringing her mouth to the curve of Blake’s chest, just below her collarbone, kissing once. “I’m smart enough to know a good trade-off when I see one.” 

“Convince me,” Blake says.

Yang draws a path to her neck with her lips, tongue sweeping against her skin before sucking lightly, toying with her. She says, “Wear that cream long-sleeve shirt you have - the cropped one - with your, like, caramel overcoat or whatever. Jeans. And those strappy heels.” 

Blake lets her head fall back, her body arching against Yang’s mouth. “Okay,” she says breathlessly. “Fine.”

“Now we won’t be late,” Yang says, teeth brushing her pulse point, Blake’s fingers digging into her shoulders.

\--

Miraculously, they _aren’t_ late, though it’d been a close call considering all the last-minute hickeys she’d had to cover on her neck. 

Weiss greets them nicely at the door, and she actually _hugs_ Blake hello, something even Yang seems oddly taken aback by. Her house is much less formal than Blake had expected; it’s inviting and warm, a contrast to the weather outside, the general coldness of the climate she seems to thrive in. 

Ruby and Pyrrha are already there; Ruby’s opening a bottle of wine, and Pyrrha’s sitting at the table with a boy Blake doesn’t recognize but assumes must be Pyrrha’s boyfriend. Yang raises her eyebrows upon seeing him. “Hey, Jaune,” she says. “I didn’t know you were coming.” 

“Yeah, I ended up having the night off,” he says, grinning. “Plus, like I’d ever miss one of Weiss’s famous dinner parties.” 

Yang laughs; Weiss lets out an indignant, “What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” 

“Oh, you know _exactly_ what it means,” Ruby says teasingly. “Your parties are legendary. Remember the time when Yang--”

“This is Blake, by the way,” Yang introduces, interrupting immediately. “Blake, Jaune. Jaune, Blake.” 

“Hey,” he says warmly. “Welcome. It’s great to have another normal person around who can’t, like, burrow through mountains with their bare hands, or whatever.” 

Blake grins. “Likewise.”

“I did that _once,_ ” Pyrrha argues. “And only because Nora bet me I couldn’t.” 

“Yeah, and you’d had like five of Yang’s beers.” 

“I stand by those,” Yang says, and she and Blake take a seat across from the two. “Actually, Ruby, toss me one.” She glances at Blake. “You want one, too?” 

“Sure.”

“Okay, toss me two.” Ruby throws them over her shoulder in succession without even looking, and Yang catches them the same way. “Thanks,” she says, cracking it open, stopping the carbonation from bubbling over. 

“So, Blake,” Pyrrha says, leaning forward to engage her, “are you from Vale originally, or...?” and even Weiss listens intently to her answers, asking her own questions. Ruby watches interestedly, chiming in once or twice, and it doesn’t _feel_ awkward, doesn’t feel like they’re interviewing her or giving her the third-degree; they all seem genuinely intrigued by her, sometimes tossing each other looks, their expressions slipping into bewilderment. It’s always quick, like the snap of a finger, a flash, and then it fades. Yang apparently doesn’t notice, and so Blake doesn’t mention anything about it, wondering if it’s really there at all.

\-- 

They have pasta and salmon and salad for dinner, and it’s incredible enough to be restaurant quality; Weiss shrugs good-naturedly when Blake tells her so and says, “Well, I wanted to be proficient enough at being independent that I’d never miss the luxury I left behind,” and it’s oddly profound, more honest than it feels like she’d intended to be.

“I understand that,” she says in response, and Weiss’s answering smile is genuine, but her eyes carry that ongoing confusion they all seem to be appraising her with. 

They’re putting their plates in the sink before moving to the living room - against Weiss’s insistence that she’d take care of it later, they’re _guests,_ after all - when Yang heads to the bathroom, and she’s left alone with the four of them. She grabs her coast off the back of the chair, only intending to hang it up, but stops--

Weiss is watching her with that _look_ again, probing, curious, captivated. Her fingers brush under her chin distractedly, like a habit during an examination. She says haltingly, “I can’t...shake it.” 

“What?” Blake says, unnerved.

Weiss starts to walk, circling around her, eyes darting over her body, but like she’s gazing _through_ Blake rather than at her, like Weiss is unraveling her from the inside out. Ruby steps up, cocks her head. “You feel that too, don’t you?” Weiss asks her distractedly, stare locked on Blake. “There’s something _strange._ ” 

Ruby studies her intently, crossing her arms. “No, I know what you mean,” she says slowly. “I’m not sure how to explain it, though.” 

“It’s definitely odd,” Pyrrha says from behind her, and Blake turns around, catching her expression of perplexity. “She’s...familiar.” 

“I...don’t know if I do,” Jaune says hesitantly. “It’s hard for me to tell. I think maybe?” 

“Hm.” Weiss continues pacing. She stops, says suddenly, “If only you could remember who you _were_ before.”

“I’m sorry?” Blake says, perturbed. 

“Like who you were before this,” Ruby says.

“We feel like we know you,” Pyrrha explains nicely. “There’s no need to look so nervous, it’s not a bad thing - just unusual.”

Blake tries to relax, but it’s uncomfortable having so many pairs of analytical eyes trained on her. She asks, “What do you mean, ‘ _before_ this’?” 

Weiss raises her eyebrows, taken aback at the question. “It isn’t just _us_ who reincarnate,” she says. “Most do. We’re just the ones who remember it.”

“But if we _all_ feel like we know you…” Ruby says, trails off, her thought getting lost to language; Pyrrha and Weiss seem to understand her anyway.

“Exactly,” Weiss says. 

Pyrrha finally tears her eyes away from Blake, capturing Weiss’s attention. She says cautiously, “You don’t think that Yang...lied to us about it, do you?” 

Weiss stops her idle movements, entire body stilling; Ruby drops her arms, eyes widening in understanding.

Weiss steps closer, finally meeting her gaze. Her eyes are ice-blue and piercing, finding something deep in Blake she hadn’t even known were there. “When you met Yang,” she asks, “what did it feel like?” 

“Um,” Blake says, until--

“Can’t you at least let _me_ tell her?” comes Yang’s own voice from the doorway, exasperated and uncomfortable.

“You _did_ lie,” Ruby accuses instantly, the middle ground of gleeful and disbelieving. 

“Yeah,” Yang says exhaustedly, sighing as she enters the room. Blake has no idea what’s going on. “Can you blame me? It’s just - it’s been...a long time. I wanted this to myself.” 

Weiss softens; it’s like the air purifies itself, alleviated, consoled. “We fought all this time for nothing?” 

“It wasn’t nothing,” Yang says shortly. “I didn’t want to talk about it. It was my right.” 

Ruby bites her lip, trying not to laugh, trying not to cry, just trying. “Oh my God,” she breathes out, her eyes turning back to Blake. “It’s really _you._ ” 

“Let’s go,” Yang says, brushing by them and taking Blake’s hand. “I’m not doing this here.” 

None of them approach, clearly more wary of Yang’s current state than they care for manners. Weiss offers her a smile and says, “It was really good to meet you,” and then she’s gently tugged away, towards the door. 

The last thing she sees upon glancing back are the four of them staring at her, and instead of confusion she finds relief.

\--

“I’m sorry,” Yang whispers as they leave the house. “I didn’t - I didn’t think they’d _know._ ”

“Know what?” Blake asks, somehow calm despite the intensity of Yang’s emotion, and her own bafflement. 

“Let me just--” she guides Blake to the same tree they’d come from “--I can’t do this here.” 

“Okay.” Blake follows her wordlessly through the wood, pathway spilling into a small opening in the middle of a dense cluster of forest; they’re back in Vale, back where Yang holds her own ground, knows exactly where she stands. 

“So?” Blake says, and Yang inhales deeply, dropping Blake’s hand. Blake doesn’t sense regret from her, doesn’t sense shame or embarrassment, only a deep, blinding sort of ache, and the weight of secrecy.

Yang steps into the clearing, her gaze falling skyward, the stars glittering brilliantly above; silence continues, passes through. She finally says slowly, “We have a...a _theory_.”

“About?” Blake prompts, mesmerized by the way Yang looks drenched in silver under the moonlight. She can’t help herself from being drawn to her, despite the uncertainty in the air, the way it feels as if her revelation will linger, explode.

The grass waves around her feet. Blake wonders if it’s natural or a result of Yang’s hesitancy. “We don’t have any memories of it,” Yang starts, talking to the sky, “so it’s not like we can...prove it. But we think that our souls weren’t just bound to our _powers_ during our first lives. We think that they were also bound to people.” 

“People?” 

“People we were closest to,” Yang says quietly, and finally, finally looks back at her. “People we loved.” 

“Oh,” Blake exhales, understanding the implication. Her heart thumps loudly against her chest like it’s trying to tell her something. “ _Oh._ And you think - you think it’s--” 

Yang turns to face her, spreading and dropping her arms helplessly. “You,” she says, her tone honest and raw. “It’s _you._ For me, it’s you.” 

“ _How?_ ” Blake asks, entranced. She steps closer, closer. “How do you - how do you _know?_ ” 

“I didn’t want to tell you,” Yang confesses, her voice wavering heartbreakingly like Blake’s about to reject her. “I know this is all crazyto you. But when I met you - I mean, you shouldn’t even have been able to _see_ me that day, Blake. I wanted to cry myself to death and I wanted to laugh forever. I wanted to run to you and kiss you and tell you how badly I’d missed you. I could’ve grown you a garden right then. I could’ve grown you an entire forest.” 

Blake reaches out, grasps Yang’s coat in her hands, and crashes their mouths together with a force she doesn’t intend but can’t control, too caught up and overwhelmed, too preoccupied with the hammering of her heart in her wrists, in her neck, in her head, in Yang’s own chest. She thinks of roots, of the way she saw Yang and couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, her soul tugging at every corner it could get its hands on, _find her, touch her, don’t let her go._

Yang wraps her arms around Blake’s waist, kisses her back just as fiercely, her skin burning beneath Blake’s hands, mouth; her grip releases on Yang’s jacket, palms cupping her cheeks instead, keeping Yang’s lips on hers. Yang seems to be smiling against her, holding her as close as she possibly can, afraid of what’ll happen when she stops. 

Blake pulls away, resting their foreheads together. “I love you,” she admits unsteadily, shaking. “I’ve been in love with you for what feels like my entire life.” 

“I’ve _literally_ been in love with you my entire life,” Yang says softly. She sighs, raises a hand, brushes Blake’s hair away from her face, her eyelids fluttering open. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I think I - me, the _first_ me, was in love with the first _you._ But something - something _happened,_ then, and I don’t know what; all I know is that it’s taken me _this_ long to find you again.” She bites her lip like she’s struggling not to cry, distracting herself with the pain of it. “I’m not like Weiss and Ruby. They’ve had each other forever. Even Pyrrha and Jaune - she’s found him _every_ time. But not me. I’ve always been alone.” 

“You’re not now,” Blake murmurs, wishing she could retroactively relive every version of herself she’s ever been and run straight into Yang’s arms. “I’m here. I’m always going to be here.” 

“You _own_ me,” Yang says. “I’m yours. No matter who I am, no matter when. I’m yours.” 

Blake draws her back in, kisses her again and again underneath the glimmering, cloudless sky; a warmth permeates the air around them, like Yang’s adjusting the temperature, pulling a blanket over the night. There’s no sound, no movement, no interruptions; only the two of them alone, so close she swears their souls are touching, swears she feels magic like a rush of blood to the head.

She pulls away, opens her eyes, and promptly gasps.

She glances around, Yang’s fingers still grasped in hers, so stunned by the sight it’s like even her veins have forgotten what they’re supposed to be doing, her blood faltering, her lungs on pause. 

“What is this?” she asks breathlessly, eyes darting to honeysuckle, blue hyacinths, white jasmine, clover, pink carnations. It extends on across the entire field in patterns, hedges, paths of rose bushes and red salvia and tulips; Yang smiles, tugs gently on her hand until Blake turns back to face her. 

“You said I should grow you a garden,” Yang says quietly. “You said it’d be better than any flower.” 

Blake doesn’t speak, doesn’t breathe, just observes the melding of colors, the sudden fragrance, the overwhelming splendor of beauty growing from something that was once nothing; she remembers the blue sky of Menagerie on the day she left, remembers emptiness and bitterness and directionlessness, remembers how it all felt bleak. How it felt like nothing would ever grow again. 

“ _Yang_ ,” she says, unable to convey any of this, tears blurring in her eyes.

Yang shrugs, and the small smile she wear is no longer bittersweet, sad; it’s what it should’ve been from the beginning, whole, healed, real. 

“It’s how you make me feel,” Yang says, and Blake kisses her in her own kind of confession.

\--

Yang’s standing in the clearing of fireflies when Qrow steps up to her side. It’s the end of her day and Blake’s waiting at home in bed, and though the ephemerality carries its own connotation of divinity, brief glittering waves, diamond skies, none of it is anything in comparison to the constant of Blake, her smile, her laugh, her eyes, how she says _I love you_ with her hands, how she rests her fingers over Yang’s heart, how the moon lives in her blood.

“So,” Qrow starts, “you told her, didn’t you?” 

Somehow, she’d expected him to ask. His magic isn’t something she entirely understands, just accepts for what it is. “Yeah.” 

“She took it pretty well, I’m guessing.” 

Yang smiles. “Yeah,” she says. “It’s still - it’s hard to explain, you know? I wish I _knew._ I wish I knew everything. Like - why did it _take_ so long, you know?” 

He doesn’t glance down at her, but he hums, his gaze trained on the horizon, the lights blinking in and out of existence like tiny stars imploding. “Actually,” Qrow says casually, “a friend of mine once told me a few things about the First War. Things lost to time, he said.” He takes a swig from his flask. “He said that there were originally six of you.”

Yang looks over at him, surprise etched across her features. “What?” 

“Yep,” Qrow says. “Apparently, one of you wasn’t able to unlock his power before he died, and it’s stayed buried ever since. And the other...was forced to give it up. Cursed.”

“How?” Yang says, her vision suddenly tearing at the corners, edges of her mind frayed and worn, peeling back. Qrow’s words sound like the ringing of a bell, a distant dream she once had, a memory too nonsensical to store. She sees the ocean in her eyes, hovering overhead like a second sky. 

“She was too powerful,” Qrow says quietly. “Or, rather, she and her partner were too powerful _together._ They were unstoppable, he said; they’d go to extremes for the other, using their abilities in ways they’d never known to be used. Because of love. Not to be corny, or anything, but that’s what he said. They were everything to each other, and their enemies decided the only way to stop them was to separate them for eternity.” 

She blinks and Blake is standing on in front of her, smile dark and beckoning; _I won’t let anything happen to you,_ her voice speaks from the inside of Yang’s skull. _I’ll kill them first. I’ll die before I see you hurt again._ “And?” 

Qrow shrugs, staring out at the sky. “They found a way to unbind her power from her soul,” he says. “According to my friend, anyway. Except they didn’t realize where that power would _go._ ”

She doesn’t have to ask, doesn’t need to push further. She’s seeing the story before he tells it, somehow, her irises flashing red, her fingers clenched into fists, lips parted. The moon opens up and swallows her whole, the bottom of the ocean burning in her lungs. Her soul aches, her veins in the wrong places, her heart gone and beating in somebody else’s chest. Moss covers her bones, vines creeping up and around her spine, wings fluttering against her ribs. _I swear I made this world for you._

He says, “You can do things the others can’t, can’t you, Yang?” 

“How do you know that?” she asks, still stunned, processing. Her voice shakes, tears itself apart in her throat. She’d kept it to herself, stayed away from speculation, from any probing eyes. She remembers Weiss’s calculating looks early on, Ruby panting heavily and saying _God, Yang, aren’t you exhausted?_ Remembers Pyrrha turning, not speaking at all. 

“All of you can do roughly the same things,” he says, “but nothing to the magnitude _you_ can. Weiss can’t raise the sea like it’s nothing. Ruby can’t split the ground a mile wide. Pyrrha can’t carve a Grimm in half with a flick of her wrist. But you - you could _literally_ move mountains, if you wanted to.” 

And then, a different kind of memory, one as if from somebody else’s past: Blake, looking almost exactly as she does now, covering the moonlit sky in dark, heavy clouds, fading into shadow. Blake, striking everywhere at once as if she herself became lightning. Blake in her arms, Yang’s tears slipping through her fingers. _Let me do this,_ she’s saying. _I’ll die before I see you hurt again._

“Yang,” Qrow says. “You’re crying.” 

“Oh, God,” Yang breathes out before she can stop herself, salt on her mouth. She chokes on an inhale, bringing her hand up to her lips, her eyes. _How will I find you,_ she hears herself. _I have to find you._ “I let her die.” 

“That’s not what my friend said,” Qrow continues after a pause. “You’d already sacrificed part of yourself for her once before. She couldn’t stand for that again. Couldn’t watch it, he said. But when she died, her power went to _you,_ and your revenge was the end of the war. Brutal, bloody, and all-consuming. Nothing evil lived when you came for it. _You’re_ the one who sealed it away, Yang. You. You’re the reason any of this is here at all. You and Blake.” 

“But she doesn’t remember,” Yang sobs, on the verge of hyperventilating, her mind overflowing, pressure emanating from the inside of her body. “She doesn’t - she doesn’t _know._ ” 

Qrow hums, getting to his feet, and rests a hand against her head. “Oh,” he says vaguely. “I think she knows more than you give her credit for.” 

There’s a rush of air, and the flicker of wings; she brings her knees to her chest, her face buried between them, crying openly. It’s still not quite there, not _herself_ she’s seeing, but she can feel it, knows Blake died in her arms, knows she slaughtered everyone and everything responsible for playing a part, knows her eyes burned red from grief, anger, vengeance, blood. Her soul weighs heavy with thousands of years sitting on top of it, crushing her, all the time they’d spent alone feeling like the echo of death.

Someone suddenly drops to their knees in front of her, hands fluttering around her hunched form; her arms, her knees, her shoulders. “Oh, baby,” she hears Blake breathe out, fingers curling comfortingly in her hair, a kiss dropping to the crown of her head. “What happened?” 

Yang lifts her head, meets her eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks. Blake cups her face between her hands, expression worried, torn, agonizing. Like it’s hurting her, too, even without understanding what it is. 

“How did you know?” Yang manages, voicing cracking every word, unable to control herself. 

“I felt it,” Blake murmurs, interpreting correctly. “I just - I knew where you were, and I knew you needed me, and that I--” she cuts off, biting her lip. “I’ve spent enough time _not_ being here for you.” She gently brushes Yang’s hair behind her ear with her right hand. “A long, long time, I think.” 

Yang curls herself into Blake’s lap, weeping, and Blake bends over her, wrapping her up in her arms, whispering soothingly to her. The sky caves in on itself and starts to drop, thunder rolling, lightning streaking through the clouds and never striking. Like their first kiss, beautiful and hopeful, the beginning. Like the day Blake died, darkest of them all, the end.

Blake holds her and lets it rain.

\--

Yang tells her everything that night, tangled together in bed, voice raw and bruised, pressed against her skin like it’s the only place she remembers how to live. I’ve been having dreams, Blake murmurs to her, arms wound around her back. Since the day we met, I’ve been dreaming about you, but they didn’t feel like dreams. 

I think I always knew, Blake whispers. I always felt it. Like part of me was gone. Like it’d been gone for so long that I’d forgotten what it even was. And then I saw you. 

Touch me, Yang says, desperately holding on. Please. I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you so much, I feel like I’ve barely even lived at all. 

Blake rests a hand over Yang’s heart and thinks of fate.

\--

“I’ll find you,” Yang whispers to her in the early hours of the morning, fingers brushing lightly over her cheek, her jawline, her chin, her lips. “I swear. I won’t forget this. I’ll stay with you my entire life, and then I’ll find you in the next.” 

“Promise,” Blake murmurs, the palm of her hand pressing against the back of Yang’s, keeping her touch against Blake’s face. “Promise me.” 

“Blake Belladonna,” Yang says, and draws forward, kissing her softly. “Like I’d ever live without _you_ again.” 

\--

She’s not sure why she decides to go to Vale for the summer, and even _less_ sure why she ventures so far outside of the city. 

She’s never really considered herself the type to find peace with nature and she isn’t going to start now, but something about the ruins of Shor have always appealed to her, a great relic of a town-turned-battleground from an ancient crusade. History has the tendency to draw her in, and with Remnant’s war-torn past, there’s never a shortage legends and myths and magic to follow. Usually she sticks to museums, to books, but she couldn’t scratch the itch, couldn’t fight back the desire any longer.

The ruins are haunting, eerie, but beautiful; they’re large and sprawling, the relics of civilization and ghosts of conflict filling up the overgrown graveyard. She spends hours wandering through the old streets, peering through the bars at the preserved rooms, unearthed objects; the earth speaks to her here, telling her to keep going, push on; _you’re missing something,_ it’s saying. _You’re missing something._

There’s a single lily growing by a moss-covered wall, and it beckons her somehow, an unearthly kind of beauty to its color, almost unnatural. She bends down in front of it, fingers toying with the stem, but can’t bring herself to pick it, can’t bring herself to destroy something so pristine.

The wind picks up suddenly, a cool breeze sliding across her face, her hair fluttering behind her. The flower doesn’t move, strangely unaffected, remaining frozen. The sight unnerves her somewhat; she stands, straightening her spine, and still the flower sits. 

There’s the crunch of a branch behind her, the snap of a twig, of fallen leaves; she spins around nervously and finds nothing. “Who’s there?” she calls. Another rustle, another step. “I’m serious,” she demands, keeping her nervousness out of her voice. 

One second passes, and then two, three, four--

A girl peeks over from behind a bordering wall, resting her elbows on the stone. “Ah,” she says, seemingly disappointed, “you’re not--” and breaks off instantly, pausing, lips still parted.

Something pushes her forward from inside of her own ribcage, her heart beating like a propeller, a force tugging at the empty space. She rests a hand against her chest, startled at the feeling, glancing down, looking up, finding the other girl’s eyes.

“Oh my God,” the girl breathes out, an expression of awe unfurling across her features, stare boring into her own. She’s stunningly gorgeous, incomprehensibly so. “I found you.” 

She blinks, pretty sure she’s never actually seen this girl before, but-- “Sorry,” she says, “what?” 

“I _found_ you,” the girl repeats, stepping around the wall towards her, voice amazed.

“Do we know each other?” she asks, bewildered; not simply at the circumstance, but at her own collision of emotion, confusion and joy and peace, and aching, overwhelming relief. 

The girl laughs once, tears blurring her vision. “Yeah,” the girl says, smiling. “We know each other.”

For a split second, she swears the girl’s irises flash lavender, her hair becoming blonde and wild, the trees around them turning red, flowers blooming in the space between their bodies; she blinks and it’s gone, the world righting itself, exactly as it has been, unchanged and quiet.

Except for the forget-me-nots she finds blossoming at her feet.

**Author's Note:**

> playlist to this work can be found [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/explosivesky/playlist/7LTUwN9wUUNY7BAd92NIVp?si=0EF5fms6Ss2Jhzd6p5s14g).


End file.
